


there's a ghost in my lungs

by QueenWithABeeThrone



Series: we tell ourselves stories. || ws!molly au [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bathing, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Festivals, Fix-It of Sorts, Found Family, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Torture, Memory Alteration, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Mollymauk Tealeaf Lives, Multi, Mutual Pining, Panic Attacks, Past Brainwashing, Platonic Cuddling, Resurrection, Sharing a Bed, Side Quests, Slow Burn, Winter Soldier AU, a very slow burn, i've got a brand and it's winter soldier aus folks, one-sided oc/canon flirting, when ur backstory comes back to bite u on the ass
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2019-06-16 15:22:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 53
Words: 235,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15440007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/pseuds/QueenWithABeeThrone
Summary: Silence falls over the battleground. A mage lies dead on the ground, and Jester’s already propping him up onto a rock and prodding his cheek with her holy symbol. She’d be here with Molly too, if Caleb hadn’t shouted at her tostay back verdammt Jester stay backand shot off a firebolt to keep a snarling tiefling from trying to kill them.Ikithon, he thinks, sick to his stomach at the thought. This is Ikithon’s work, it has his signature written all over it. He doesn’t dare ask Jester to undo it. He doesn’t even know where she can start, with undoing whatever’s been done to Molly.or:The Winter Soldier, Wildemount edition.





	1. just stop haunting me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [words-writ-in-starlight (Gunmetal_Crown)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gunmetal_Crown/gifts), [sockablock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sockablock/gifts).



> fic title is from Florence + the Machine's "I'm Not Calling You A Liar".
> 
> thanks to [Starlight](http://words-writ-in-starlight.tumblr.com/) and [tumblr user sockablock](https://sockablock.tumblr.com/) for listening to me shrieking about this fic. there's more of this. I wrote 21 pages in gdocs _at last count_. this train don't stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1/26/19: edits made to reflect canon developments. spoilers up until ep 49.

In the immediate aftermath of the fight, the first thing Caleb does is throw up behind the bushes.

The second is to charge over to Mollymauk’s unconscious body, bleeding slowly out onto the ground, and pour a damn potion down his throat.

Molly stirs somewhat as the potion works its way down his throat, but otherwise he doesn’t move. New wounds start to stitch back together, new bruises fade into something that can be better-hidden, new burns flake away into healing skin.

Silence falls over the battleground. A mage lies dead on the ground, and Jester’s already propping him up onto a rock and prodding his cheek with her holy symbol. She’d be here with Molly too, if Caleb hadn’t shouted at her to _stay back verdammt Jester stay back_ and shot off a firebolt to keep a snarling tiefling from trying to kill them.

Ikithon, he thinks, sick to his stomach at the thought. This is Ikithon’s work, it has his signature written all over it. He doesn’t dare ask Jester to undo it. He doesn’t even know where she can start, with undoing whatever’s been done to Molly.

He smooths Molly’s hair back. He wishes he had Frumpkin here, not banished to the Feywild until Caleb can gather the needed materials for Find Familiar again. “I am so sorry we took so long,” he says.

Yasha walks up, limping. Beau is leaning against her, more or less just letting Yasha drag her along with only the occasional attempt at walking on her own power. They’re all a pretty pathetic-looking bunch, at the moment, caught off-guard and with their metaphorical pants down. Caleb should’ve thought—

No use for that now, he supposes.

“ _Molly_ ,” says Yasha, as devastated as she was when she first learned of Molly’s death. She kneels down and touches his cheek, and Caleb sees the tips of her fingers glow for just a second.

“What the _hell_ just happened,” says Beau. Her inflection makes her question sound more like an _order_ than a request. “What the fuck—What happened to him?”

“Ikithon,” says Caleb.

Beau’s eyes grow wide, realization settling in. “Fuck,” she says, succinctly. “Fuck fuck _fuck_ , that _sonuvabitch_.”

Yasha frowns. “The man we talked to, after the Victory Pit?” she says. “What did he do? What does he have to do with Molly, and that man we just fought? The one who knew you?”

Caleb swallows, and says, “Everything.” Molly hasn’t stirred yet, his breathing evening out now as the pale cast to his skin starts to fade, but he looks—terrible. There are new scars from before the battle that Caleb doubts were self-inflicted, and the armor he wears is dark and pockmarked, meant to provide some measure of protection whilst sneaking in the shadows. He cannot imagine Molly in the shadows—whenever he thinks of him, he sees him in the light, like a too-bright star against the dark sky.

He smooths Molly’s hair back from his face. It’s much longer now, lank and not as clean as he knows Molly would’ve liked. There’s a scar just bisecting Molly’s left eyebrow that hadn’t been there before—he thinks he knows where it came from.

“Caleb!” Jester’s voice rings out across the battlefield, startling him out of his thoughts.

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” says Yasha, still holding her no-longer-dead friend. “If he revives and tries to come after anyone—”

She doesn’t finish, but her jaw sets in a hard line. Good enough for Caleb, who rises and dusts off his shabby little coat.

He walks back over to Fjord and Jester and Nott, now surrounding the corpse of the mage who’d attacked them in the night. He recognizes this one, even with a crossbow bolt through the eye: Yonnah Intyre, one of the richer and crueler classmates Caleb had known. He’d been obsessed with keeping his robes clean and white, unsoiled by dirt or blood or debris—something about how the Empire’s best and brightest needed to look the part, no matter what.

Yonnah is staring at him now with cloudy green eyes. His immaculate white robes are dirty and bloodied, red mingling with brown dirt. Animated by Jester’s divine magic, he grins, an awful half-burned smile.

“Hi, Caleb!” chirps Jester, with a smile that belies the steel in her eyes. “We got lots of information off this guy, but he seems to know you, so maybe you could try talking to him? Ask him why he made Molly try to kill us?”

Fjord doesn’t say anything, just watches Caleb with a thoughtful look. Caleb looks away, and catches sight of Nott.

Nott’s hand sneaks into his, and squeezes once. _I’m with you._

Caleb kneels down in front of his classmate’s grinning corpse, and says, “ _Hallo_ , Yonnah. It’s been some time. Do you know the tiefling you’ve been dragging around with you?”

Yonnah’s voice is faraway, halfway ethereal, when it comes: “ _Astrid’s little blood hunter friend, yes. The one she performed a ritual over two years ago. She’s been looking for him a while._ ”

“Who’s Astrid?” Fjord murmurs to Caleb.

“Someone I knew,” says Caleb.

“From the Academy? You wanna explain how you knew her?” Fjord asks.

“Later,” says Caleb, thinking of Astrid’s eyes, icy blue and cold. They used to be warmer. “What did she and Ikithon do to him? Is there any way to have it undone?”

“ _They saw his potential and molded it into something the Empire could use,_ ” says Yonnah. “ _We do not have many blood hunters on our side, you know this. Filthy as they are, unnatural as their powers are, they can prove—useful._ ” There’s a dark, spectral chuckle, and Caleb clenches his fist and tastes ashes on his tongue. “ _But a Greater Restoration spell—that should undo it._ ”

“I’ve still got a spell left over,” says Jester, “I think I can cast Greater Restoration on him right now, so he doesn’t try to kill us when he wakes up.”

“No,” says Caleb.

“No?” says Jester, surprised.

“There is always some kind of trap, left behind,” says Caleb, thinking of the healer in the asylum, who’d brushed his hair back from his face and whispered _it’s okay, I’m here to help_. “If you were to cast Greater Restoration on Molly, you would be likely to go mad when it sets off.” He looks down at Yonnah and says, “Isn’t that right?”

Yonnah’s ghost chuckles, horribly. “ _You’ve always been too clever for your own good, Bren,_ ” he says, mockingly, and Caleb flinches back from the use of his old name. “ _Yes, Ikithon left a little surprise for anyone wanting to undo his hard work. Avoiding it will be—difficult, to say the least, the chances it will catch your little tiefling cleric are very high. I suggest you kill him now—he’s far outlived his usefulness anyway, and it’s far simpler._ ”

“Yeah, uh, that’s a no,” says Fjord. “Molly’s one of ours, and you took him from us. We’re taking him back.”

“ _Good luck with that,_ ” Yonnah says, and his head rolls back, rests once more against the rock.

Silence falls over the clearing once more.

Then Nott says, “At least we don’t have to look all that far for him.”

“Yeah, Yasha would sit on him first before she lets him get away again,” says Jester, sounding as cheery as ever. When Caleb looks at her, though, her hands have clenched into fists, and her shoulders are shaking with a fury that he’s only ever seen in Yasha before.

“This was Trent’s idea of a sick joke, wasn’t it,” says Fjord, cutting straight to the heart of the matter. “You got any idea how to fix it?”

Caleb huffs out a breath, and says, “ _Ja_ , but it needs context. And that is—it’s a very long story. I told you a fraction of it in Felderwin, but I will tell the rest of it to you right now, if you want. And Yasha, too. And Molly, if at all possible—he deserves to know.”

“That’s going to be a little hard to do,” says Nott, squinting off in the distance. Caleb turns, and sees Molly beginning to wake as Beau smacks his shoulder.

Molly goes still for a moment. Then, in a flash, he’s tackled Beau to the ground, trying his damnedest to pin her down and cut her throat. Or claw it out if he has to, from the desperation in his movements, like a feral animal lashing out, and Caleb’s already moving before Jester can, running towards them.

Yasha’s fist slams into Molly’s side, throwing him off of Beau. Then Beau’s staff sweeps out, taking him off his feet. He lands flat onto the ground with a cry, but staggers to his feet just as Caleb scatters fine sand out and makes a few hasty motions. This might not work, this might not even slow him down—

Molly slows, for a moment, halfway to unsheathing the wicked-looking sword hanging from his hip. Then he drops to a knee, shaking his head, before he collapses once more, fast asleep.

“No one touch him,” Caleb says, gasping, as he runs up. “I mean it! We can’t wake him up, we need to restrain him. The spell can only hold him for a short time.”

“We’ve still got manacles,” says Jester, catching up. “They aren’t, like, _enchanted_ or anything, but they’ll still hold him.”

“And someone needs to keep an eye on him so he doesn’t break out and try to _kill us_ ,” says Nott, right behind Jester.

“We’ll take turns,” says Fjord.

“I’ll go first,” says Beau. “I’m fast, and I can take him down if he manages to break out of the cuffs.” She leans against her staff once more, hissing in pain as she does. “Although I’d really appreciate a little help here—”

“Fine, fine,” huffs Jester, and she taps Beau’s shoulder with her finger. Beau breathes out a relieved sigh, as the bruises and cuts fade, and shifts experimentally from one foot to the other. She still hisses when she does, but she doesn’t buckle to her knees. “We can’t just keep tying Molly up forever, though. I mean, I’d bet he’d _like_ it if he could right now, but he can’t. We need to fix him.”

“We can’t cast a restoration spell on him—” Caleb starts.

Jester spins on her heel and says, “Why not?”

“You’d go mad,” says Caleb.

“You said there’s a _chance_ I could,” says Jester.

“It’s not a chance I want to take, not with you,” says Caleb. “Fjord?”

“It’s a risk,” Fjord says, “but it’s _Molly_.” He sighs. “I don’t like this. But we’re miles out from the nearest town and any other cleric. If Jester’s sure she can do it—”

“Which I totally could,” says Jester.

“—then we gotta let her try,” says Fjord.

Caleb lets out a long, slow breath. Then he says, “All right. But first—you must know the risk you’re going to take. And the people,” he falters, looking at Molly, bright and shining Molly, sleeping on the ground in clothes that are all wrong for someone so colorful and kind, “the people we are up against.”

\--

It isn’t that Jester really wants to go as bonkers as Caleb thinks she might go, if she were to try this out, of course. People who go down that route tend to end up in a straitjacket and a padded cell, and Jester’s so not into that. Honestly, if it were anybody else, she wouldn’t even consider the idea, not even for a bag full of pastries.

But it’s Molly.

He’s awake now, wrists and ankles manacled together so he doesn’t try to attack anyone else. They’re putting some distance in between themselves and the place where they straight-up murdered somebody Caleb apparently used to know from his time in school, and Jester’s still reeling, a little, maybe, from the story that Caleb told them about his parents, his friends, more of the things that were done to him and might’ve been done to Molly to make him so—

She can’t think it. She grips her holy symbol tight and prays, _Traveler help me, I want to be strong enough to help my friends. I want to save Molly._

She doesn’t hear his voice, but she feels the warm glow from her symbol. That’s enough, for now.

Molly watches her, wary. He’s stopped struggling against the chains, at least, but he’s curled up into a small ball and now is just watching everyone with eyes like a hawk’s. He hasn’t said a word since he woke up, but he’d flinched back from Beau and Yasha, and that had said more than enough about his current state of mind than anything. Molly’s a tactile kind of person, he loves touch, he loves being touched.

“I’m sorry we were too late, Molly,” she says. “We looked for you, we really did. But every time we tried, we couldn’t find you.” She reaches out, tentatively, and tucks his hair back behind his ear. He flinches away, curls in on himself as best as he can. “We should’ve tried harder, I know. We’ll make up for that.”

Molly doesn’t say anything, just looks at her with wary, almost fearful eyes. She supposes she can’t blame him—they beat his ass silly and killed the guy he was with and then tied him up and threw him into their cart. If somebody did that to her, she wouldn’t just be suspicious, she’d be angry. She’d be _Yasha_ angry.

...she’ll fix that.

“I’m Jester,” she says. “You’re Molly. Mollymauk Tealeaf. Do you remember that?”

A flash of recognition passes over his face, then fear. He scoots away from her, tail flailing around, agitated. Jester scoots closer, trying to remember what Fjord said about calming down spooked horses, and holds her hand out.

“It’s me,” she says, soothingly. “Molly, it’s just me. I won’t hurt you. We’ve been really bad at not hurting you but I promise we’ll do better, and I promise I’ll make you better.” Even if Caleb turns out to be right and it drives her mad in the process, she has to at least try. This is Molly, this is her friend, he _died_ for her and she wasn’t there to help him. If she can help him now, then she’ll take the risk. Everyone will take care of her if the trap Caleb was so sure about ensnares her, she knows. “I _promise._ ”

Molly makes a little strangled noise, as she comes closer, but he doesn’t move away. Her hand presses gently onto his cheek, and he goes so terribly still that she’s half-afraid she’s set him off the way Beau did. But then, after a moment’s hesitation, he leans tentatively into her touch.

She scoots up closer, to let him press into her side. “We’ll make you better,” she promises, “you’ll see. You’ll be okay, Molly.”

Molly breathes out, and leans against her side. She reaches up and idly scratches at the base of his horns, and he makes a little noise like Frumpkin purring.

Then Yasha pokes her in the arm, apparently finished with her turn on watching the road. “Hey,” she says. “Can I—”

“Of course,” says Jester, generously. Yasha scoots in next to Molly, who freezes up again when she does, and murmurs something to him that makes him blink and look at her, really _look_ at her.

Jester lets this go on for a couple more minutes, until Fjord calls from the front, “Hey, Jes’, mind giving me some help up here?” Then she pets Molly’s hair and scrambles over to the front.

\--

It’s as they’re setting up camp that Jester, after frantically searching through her haversack and her pockets, comes up to them and says, “Bad news: we don’t have any diamond dust, and I asked the Traveler if there was any and he wasn’t, like, super helpful, but I’d bet we could find some in the next town!”

“Fuck,” says Beau, succinctly.

Caleb can’t say he’s completely unhappy—he’s relieved, at least, that Jester won’t have to try her hand at a Restoration spell for a few more days while she gathers the necessary components, but at the same time he just.

He can’t look at Molly and not think, _my fault, my fault, mine._ If he had said something about his past sooner, if he had figured out some way to dissuade their reduced little group from attacking the Iron Shepherds all those months ago, if they’d taken the Shepherds down sooner, _if if if_ —

Well, they wouldn’t be here. They would all be happy, and less broken, and Molly would be grinning and laughing and reading fortunes half-spun from bullshit. He wouldn’t be this silent shadow, this ghost, chained up and kept watch over like a feral creature they don’t quite trust not to bite them, if he were free.

Caleb takes the first watch with Nott. They don’t talk for the first half-hour or so, content in each other’s company. Nott is roasting a rat she’s been saving up from the previous inn, and the smell is—not bad, actually. At the very least she isn’t eating it raw.

Then she says, “I missed him.”

Caleb looks at her. “ _Was?_ ”

“Molly,” Nott clarifies, waving at Molly, still manacled and shackled. “I know you did too.”

Caleb doesn’t answer, but simply takes out one of his spell books and looks through it, trying not to look at Molly’s sleeping form or at Nott. He should really update this spellbook, one of these days. It always helps to have a backup on hand.

“We didn’t always see eye to eye a lot,” says Nott, playing with the braid Jester put her hair in, “but he was—nice. And he lived life to the fullest.” She huffs out a breath, and says, “He deserves a lot better than what he got. I feel—bad, really, that we weren’t there when he got out of the grave. And the note didn’t exactly work out, did it.”

“It did not, no,” Caleb says. “Astrid would’ve seen fit to throw it away, I believe. She and Eodwulf were two of the best students after me, they learned their lessons well.” Caleb did too, when he was younger, when his name was Bren, but Bren burned up in the flames with his parents. Caleb now is—letting new lessons stick, is what he thinks of it, trying to allow this little group of misfits in more and more.

The silence between them stretches on for a few more heartbeats, before Nott says, “Do you think there’s no saving them? Your friends?”

Caleb shuts his spellbook, and puts it back into its holster. “It has been,” he says, quietly, “a very long time since I could call them friends. Perhaps they could’ve been saved once, but there are—some things you cannot just come back from. If they ever could’ve been saved, that time has long since passed.” It’s passed for Caleb himself, too, for all that he’s no longer one of the Empire’s best executioners. Some things he can’t wipe away with a snap of his fingers and a whispered word. Not yet, anyway.

“What about Molly?”

Caleb goes still. He looks over at Molly again, still sleeping, still shackled. He tries to remember the snarling tiefling that held a sword to his throat just hours ago, but instead he thinks of Molly standing over him, shielding him from harm. He thinks of Molly pressing a kiss to his forehead, whispering, _time for that later._ He thinks of colors and sunlight and warmth, when he thinks of Molly.

“I don’t think,” he says, slowly, “he’s beyond saving just yet. He hasn’t had the amount of time under the brainwashing that we had, and Astrid is not the most patient of people.” That had always been Eodwulf, trying to keep his two friends from tearing off and getting into trouble because of how insatiable they were, when it came to magic. “She may not have been as thorough as Ikithon was, especially with Molly in such a vulnerable state already. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t get help from him—you heard what Yonnah said.”

“Yonnah, huh?” says Nott. “That was his name? How did you know him? And yeah, I heard him.”

“He was a bully back in the Academy,” says Caleb. “Ikithon may have—assisted Astrid, in laying any traps waiting for us in Molly’s head. None of the three of us were as good as he was, with layering complicated mind magics.” He sighs, and tugs his coat tighter around himself. “But he would’ve left much of the real work up to Astrid. He never did like having to help us if he felt like he didn’t need to.”

“So maybe he’s not interested in Molly,” says Nott. “Maybe it’s just Astrid.”

“Maybe,” Caleb echoes, “but just because she’s not as good as he is, it doesn’t mean she isn’t good at it period. We still have to be careful, and assume that we are working with information at least ten years far out of date.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Nott reasons. “You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met.”

He shrinks away from Nott, somewhat, still a little uncomfortable from the praise even now. His eyes land on Molly, now stirring awake and slowly blinking bleary red eyes at him and Nott.

Molly doesn’t say a word. He’s been strangely silent these past few hours, courtesy perhaps of what he’s been through in the past few months, but already Caleb can see signs of life somewhere inside of this shadow. Molly cocks his head to the side, eyes fixing on him like he’s trying to figure something out about Caleb. It’s almost the same look Caleb saw on him whenever he saw something new and exciting, but the smile is gone and the wonder in his eyes burns worse than the flames Caleb plays with all the time.

He stands up, ruffles Nott’s hair (and earns himself an indignant huff from her about messing up Jester’s hard work), and moves over to Molly’s side.

“Mr. Mollymauk,” he says, courteously.

The chains clink together as Molly curls up, looking up at him like he’s not sure what to expect out of him. Caleb remembers being in his position, being so desperate to please his teacher, never being quite sure how to predict his reactions to something. He holds his hands up to show him _I mean no harm_ , and for good measure, takes off the Glove of Blasting and puts it away in his coat.

“Can I sit next to you?” he asks.

Molly looks at him, then at Nott. His eyebrows knit together in confusion, like he doesn’t know why someone would ask to sit next to him, but eventually he sits up, trying very hard not to jiggle the chains so much, and scoots over to make room for Caleb.

Caleb sits down. “We still have your coat,” he says, at last. “We ran into someone wearing it trying to mug a girl, and Beau and Yasha and I, we, ah, we snapped.” The man had been a leering asshole, threatening some poor young girl, and that was probably just enough to get him knocked out, but they’d seen the coat and Caleb had felt the rage rise up, the ashes choking his throat. Molly had loved that coat, awful as it is, and knowing someone took it and wasn’t _worthy_ of it—the man had died, then and there, the victim of grief-filled rage.

Molly tilts his head and frowns a little at him.

“I imagine you have no idea what I’m going on about,” says Caleb, just as Nott walks up and drops a familiar bundle into Molly’s bound hands. “Oh—”

“You’re very loud,” Nott informs him. She presses a sisterly kiss to the very top of his head. “And who knows, it might kickstart something in his head.”

Molly’s quiet as he turns the bundle over in his hands, but for the first time in the past few hours, Caleb sees the tension bleed out of his body.

For the first time in months, Caleb sees him smile.


	2. a hollow play

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Arcade Fire's "My Body Is A Cage".

Molly’s wearing The Coat when Jester wakes up in the morning. Or using it, anyway, as a blanket to cocoon himself in, wrapping it around himself. His tail lashes contently around, and she catches a flash of something on it in the sunlight.

Wait a minute.

Unthinkingly, she reaches for his tail. Molly just freezes in place for a second, before it’s yanked out of her unresisting hands and he’s scooted away, coat wrapped tighter around himself.

“I just want to check,” she says.

Fjord, already packing up his tent, stops for a moment and backs up to Jester. “Something up?” he asks, carrying a bundle of canvas. His tusks are a little bit asymmetrical now, on account of their time spent in captivity, but it makes him even more handsome and rugged now.

“Well, Molly,” says Jester, waving a hand. “I thought I saw something on his tail, and I wanted to check ‘cause what if we missed something last night and it probably hurts? Tiefling tails are really sensitive.”

“Could just be a piercing,” Fjord suggests.

“He wouldn’t be so fucked up about it if it was just a piercing,” Jester reasons. “He wasn’t before, remember?”

“You could ask him,” says Fjord. “I knew a guy once on our ship, name of Ace—didn’t talk a lot, but you could tell by the way he moved if he was okay with you doing something to him or not.” He shifts his hold on the bundle of canvas in his arms, and says, “Usually, he’d be a lot more okay with something if you asked him first.”

“Fjord!” Beau calls from the cart. “Yasha’s busy, get over here and help me load this crate up!”

“Duty calls,” Fjord says, with a wry smile, and walks off. Jester watches him go, then turns back to Molly, who’s—also watching Fjord go, a curious look in his eye.

Ask first.

“Can I look at your tail?” she asks, crouching down and holding her hand out. _Spooked horse,_ she reminds herself.

Molly licks at his lips, then nods. His tail comes back to her hand, settling in her palm. It’s scarred as hell in a deliberate pattern, like someone with knowledge of tiefling anatomy took a scalpel and started cutting. Or like someone grabbed his tail and used Inflict Wounds on it, for as much pain as possible. What had Caleb said, about his time with that Ikithon dick? _We were taught how best to get what we wanted out of people. Sometimes that included torture._

Traveler help her, she’s going to punch the shit out of this asshole. After letting Yasha and Caleb and Molly go at him first, of course, if there’s anything left of him.

“Do these hurt?” she asks.

Molly nods, slightly. His chains rattle as he tugs his coat up, trying to cover his neck.

“I’m gonna do something, okay,” she says. “I’ll try to heal you a little bit. I don’t know if it’ll work super well, a lot of these are really old, but it’ll help you feel better.”

Molly frowns at her, opens his mouth as if to say something, then shuts it again. He waves a hand, his other hand following quickly after because of the manacles, and it looks kinda funny, really. It’s funny enough to get a little chuckle out of her, at the least, and she spies a small smile creeping in at the edges of his mouth.

There’s the Molly she knew.

“We’ll fix this,” she promises. “You’ll be all the way okay, not just halfway there. But for now, this is what you’ll have to settle for.”

Her hand grips her holy symbol tight, and she shuts her eyes. The Traveler’s warmth spreads down her arm, down her fingers, into Molly’s tail, and he makes a surprised sound. She opens her eyes, and some of the scars have begun to fade away.

Molly, experimentally, flicks his tail about more vigorously than before. He smiles at her.

Nott yells, “Jester! Lift Molly and let’s get out of here, the next town’s a day away!”

\--

Yasha sits next to Caleb, stringing flowers she picked along the road into a crown: snapdragons, daisies, carnations, forget-me-nots. It’s strange, watching this giant woman who’s carved people apart carefully putting a flower crown together, but Caleb doesn’t comment. They’re a strange little bunch here, after all.

Molly is asleep, in a corner of the cart. His coat is draped over him like an overly colorful blanket, and at least for the moment, he doesn’t seem likely to lash out against them. They’ll have to take the chains off anyway when they get to town, it’ll be suspicious having a man chained up in the back of their cart.

Yasha says, “What do you think Astrid and Ikithon did to Molly?”

The hard questions now, apparently. Caleb sighs. “The same thing he did to those of us who were special,” he says, his tone flat. “Modify Memory, perhaps, and a Geas if he really wanted to ensure Molly’s cooperation. I remember sometimes, if we were being especially obstinate, he would cast a Suggestion spell and gently nudge us towards loosening our stance. Astrid is different, though, and from how Molly is acting right now, she could’ve been more aggressive in her methods. She can be subtle should there be need of it, but—if Molly came out of the grave the same way he did the first time, perhaps she didn’t feel the need for subtlety.”

Something snaps in Yasha’s hands, as her eyes flicker black like tar. She curses, quietly, as the flowers scatter across her lap, and Caleb helps her scoop up the rest of them before the cart’s movement throws any of them out. “ _Shit_ ,” says Yasha. “Fuck, that wasn’t— _fuck_.”

“He’ll come back,” Caleb finds himself saying. “He’s a resilient person.”

“That kind of thing leaves _marks_ ,” says Yasha, almost vehement in her tone. Caleb blinks, surprised to see her so angry outside of battle—but this is Molly they’re talking about, her best friend in the Mighty Nein.

But he gets the feeling it’s not just Molly she’s speaking of here.

“ _Was?_ ” he says.

“It’s not,” she starts, then stops and shakes her head. “It isn’t something you can just come back from. Being—Being made to do things, that you didn’t want to do, it’s not—it doesn’t fade. Not with magic. Not with time. Not with anything. It _stays_.” She breathes out, slowly, shoulders shaking with the effort of spilling out so much, and scrubs her hand over her face. “He shouldn’t have needed to know that,” she says. “Any of that.”

 _It’s my fault,_ Caleb thinks, but he’s said that to Beau before, and gotten his shoulder smacked for it. Instead he puts an arm around Yasha, as gingerly as possible, and pats her shoulder.

Yasha doesn’t startle away, nor does she toss his hand off. Her hand comes up and gently lays over his, squeezes once, twice. _Thank you,_ she doesn’t say, but the sentiment is there, in her sad smile half-hidden by her hair, in the way the tension bleeds from her shoulders.

Then Molly makes a little noise in the back of the cart when they pass over a particularly hard bump in the road, chains rattling. Caleb lets it be for a moment, thinking of it as simply Molly reacting to the cart’s movements.

Then he hears a distressed gasp. And another. And another.

Then a _scream_.

“ _Molly_ ,” says Yasha, and she’s out of her seat as soon as possible.

Beau, in the front of the cart, shouts, “Fjord, stop the damn cart!” Then she vaults over the front seat to the back, rushing forward to Molly. “Fuck, fuck, Molly, what the _fuck_ —”

“Molly,” Yasha’s saying, trying to shake him awake, “hey, Molly, come on, wake up, it’s just us—Molly?”

“What’s going on?” says Nott, poking her head up from her careful alchemy. She shoves a cork into the vial she’s just poured acid into, and scurries to Molly’s side as well.

“Here, let me,” says Jester, pushing past Caleb, already holding her holy symbol and looking more than a little frustrated at having been interrupted in the middle of drawing. “Molly, wake _up_ —”

Fjord also pushes forward. “Gettin’ real crowded back here,” he mutters, but there’s a crease of concern between his brows, and his lips are pressed into a thin line, only the tusks jutting out. “Molly? Hey, Molls, c’mon, what’s wrong? Oh, _fuck_ —”

Caleb gets to his feet and stares at the little worried group assembled near Molly, who’s—not conscious, just yet, but already Jester’s trying to wrench his hand away from his own face, cursing under her breath. Then Caleb thinks, _I know what this is._

“Don’t wake him!” he says, pushing past the crowd. “Don’t wake him, you’ll hurt him worse, this is a _spell_ —”

Molly gasps, and shoots awake. There’s that awful, _feral_ look in his eyes, and Caleb only manages to register that much before he’s crashing out of the cart and onto the road, and _ow_ , that hurts. What hurts more is the fact that there’s a length of chain around his neck and he can’t breathe he can’t _breathe_ —

Beau’s staff knocks into Molly’s side, knocking him back. Molly slams into the side of the cart, staggers to his feet, and—blinks, slowly, dazedly. Like he’s just come out of a bad dream.

“What the _fuck_ just happened?” snaps Beau.

“Dream,” says Caleb. “Yasha, I told you about Astrid and her lack of subtlety, remember?”

“We were literally _just_ talking about that,” says Yasha, getting out of the cart. “This is an example, then?”

“You guys need to _stop hurting each other_ ,” says Jester, annoyed as she climbs down from the cart. “Who needs healing?”

“I’m a bit bruised from the fall, but I will be fine, I think,” says Caleb, deciding not to call attention to the fact that a moment ago he had a chain wrapped around his neck, growing tight as a hangman’s noose. “I am more worried about Molly.”

Molly doesn’t say a word, but his eyes flick from Caleb, to Beau, to Yasha and Jester. Then he looks up at the cart, and at Nott pointing her crossbow at him, at Fjord’s hand wreathed in darkness. Understanding seems to sink in, then, and he slumps down to the ground and only—curls up into a small ball, tail wrapping around his legs. His breath hitches, and his shoulders start to shake.

Yasha walks forward now, crouches down and holds her hand out. “Molly?” she says, quiet.

He blinks up at her.

“It’s Yasha,” she says. “I’m going to ask you a few questions. Just nod for yes, shake for no. Did you dream something bad?”

Molly nods, miserable.

“Sometimes I do too,” says Yasha. “I’ve found that—having something to hold on to, afterwards, it helps. Do you want something to hold on to?”

Molly hesitates for a moment.

“You’re allowed to,” Yasha says, and Jester makes a horrified, strangled noise behind her, her tail lashing agitatedly about. Even Fjord looks shaken, and Caleb thinks suddenly of the cages they were in, too narrow to contain three people comfortably. He should’ve burned Lorenzo slower than he did. He should’ve made him _hurt_ even worse, somehow. “Want things, I mean.”

“Allowed?” says Beau.

Molly nods, then.

“Do you want your coat?” Yasha asks.

Another nod, and Fjord tosses the coat down to Yasha, who catches it and drapes it over Molly. It’s strange, but the moment it’s on, it’s as if all the exhaustion and terror bleeds out of Molly for just a moment. He even manages a smile up at Yasha.

Nott puts her crossbow away, hops down from the cart to Caleb’s side, and says, “Caleb! Are you all right?”

“ _Ja,_ Nott, I’m all right,” Caleb confirms, trying not to wince as he shifts experimentally from side to side. From the way Nott’s eyes narrow at him, he’s pretty sure he didn’t succeed. That surety is confirmed when she waves Jester over, who looks him up and down and gives a theatrical sigh to the heavens. Then she prods his shoulder none too gently with a glowing finger.

God, Caleb’s friends are all assholes.

God, he’s missed them all so much.

...and god, he still misses Molly, even though the tiefling is right in front of him. He wants nothing more than to see him smile again, wide and delighted, like the world is something new, something to glory in despite all evidence to the contrary. He’s half-afraid Astrid and Ikithon and Caleb’s past have robbed him of that cheer, and perhaps even a little angry over that. Of all people, it’s Molly who least deserves to have _anyone’s_ past demons haunt him, let alone Caleb’s.

“We should get moving, and quick,” Fjord says, his fingers drumming out a rhythm against the cart’s sides. “We still got a town to get to. We’ll worry ‘bout— _everything_ when we know where we’re sleeping for the night.” _Everything_ meaning Caleb’s past, coming back to haunt them in the worst way, and the hooks it’s dug into Molly’s head, the strings it’s put him on and the tune it’s making him dance to.

Caleb tastes ashes, in the back of his throat, and wonders how long he has left in the Mighty Nein.

\--

They don’t actually make it to the town before nightfall. They do set up camp just three miles out, and Jester volunteers to take watch this time alongside Beau, who puts herself on what she calls “Molly-sitting duty”, since they’re three miles out and it’s way easier to just take the chains off right now instead of fuss over it just before they get within view of the guards. Jester does not want to have to explain their circumstances to a bunch of Crownsguard, honestly, and considering that apparently Molly’s this way ‘cause of a bunch of Empire people, she _really_ doesn’t want to like, tip them off, or anything.

Although, because they aren’t stupid, Molly doesn’t have any weapons on him either, and certainly nothing sharper than his horns.

She offers to put Molly under the tapestry they buried him in, somewhat jokingly, while she’s affixing jewelry to her horns, because she needs to look Important if they’re going to go around asking for expensive supplies in town tomorrow. Molly shakes his head vigorously and burrows further under his coat, and that’s the end of that discussion.

So here they are now, the three of them—technically it’s only Jester and Beau on watch, technically, but Molly’s pretty wide awake, so he’s sitting up with them too, in easy reach of Beau’s staff should something like what happened earlier happen again. Beau’s chewing on a strip of pocket bacon, and Jester’s squinting into the darkness, trying to see what’s going on.

Then she sighs, and pulls out her journal. She starts to scribble in it, sketching out a doodle of dead zombie Lorenzo kissing hopefully-will-be-dead-soon zombie Ikithon, and adds little flames around them to indicate where they are in the Nine Hells. Then, for kicks, she adds little angry hamster unicorns stabbing them in the dicks.

Someone leans against her shoulder. She knows it’s Molly, because a moment later his horn snags on her horn jewelry, and when he tries to move he pulls her along.

“Ow!” she shrieks, over Beau’s laughter. “Ow, ow, _ow_ —help, Beau, _help_ —”

Molly slaps against her shoulder. She curses again, but stills for just long enough that he can try to disentangle himself from her jewelry. What happens instead is that he manages, somehow, to get his _fingers_ tangled up too, and Jester swears that she can just about hear the Traveler laughing, somewhere. She loves him, but jeez, she could use a little bit of help over here.

Nott pokes her head up from her sleep, crossbow already in hand. Then she pauses, taking in the sight: Beau laughing like a total asshole, Jester and Molly with their horns tangled up in Jester’s horn jewelry.

“I thought you were dying!” she says.

“Beau might be,” says Jester.

Beau doesn’t answer, mostly because she’s wheezing with laughter at this point. Molly doesn’t say anything, but he does stick the middle finger of his free hand up at Beau. It’s such a _Molly_ thing to do that Jester’s heart breaks just a little bit for him, and the things that have been done to him.

“Do you guys need help?” says Nott, squinting at the tangled up mess that Jester’s horn jewelry has become. Molly tries to nod, but ends up jabbing his horn into Jester’s cheek. Jester’s horn stabs his palm, and he makes an annoyed face as he tries to gingerly move it out of the way without getting even more stabbed.

“Ow!” Jester hisses. “Please help.”

Nott stares at them, then sighs and puts her crossbow down. “Just hold still,” she says, stepping over Beau, who’s trying to get her breath back.

Nott definitely fares better than Jester and Molly did, and after a moment Molly’s hand and horn are free from Jester’s jewelry. Molly shakes his hand out, inspects it, then huffs out a breath and prods Beau, who’s just now staggering back to a more vertical position, giggling a little bit every so often.

“What even happened here?” huffs Nott. “One minute I was just sleeping, the next you were yelling and I really _did_ think one of you was actually _dying_.” She cuts a brief glance at Molly, who shrugs in answer.

“Molly’s horn got tangled up in my jewelry,” says Jester, fussing with her jewelry. She’s been collecting them a while, ever since Shady Creek Run, buying shiny things just—just because she can. Molly reaches up to gently disentangle some of the more intricate charms, a crescent-shaped pendant hanging from the tip of her horn. “It sucked.”

He pauses, squinting at the little bauble. His thumb rubs over the face of it, and Jester remembers: he’d had some moon charms of his own, too. She looks at him again—his horns are bare, still. Nott had said she hadn’t stolen anything from his body, that had only been Beau and Caleb, and they hadn’t touched his horns, so Jester has some idea who did take Molly’s favorite trinkets away from him.

“Do you want it?” she asks, putting the anger away for now. She’ll kick their asses one day, she will. But right now Molly needs her help more, not her anger, and so she’ll give him the former and save the anger for a better time. “It’d look really good on you!”

Molly nods, enthusiastic. His entire face seems to light up in the dimming firelight, and Jester almost chokes on the sheer delight in his eyes. She looks to Beau, whose laughter has faded into a thin-lipped horror, and to Nott, who’s watching Molly with a heartbreak in her eyes that she’s only seen a couple times before, most recently while watching Caleb talk about his past and his parents and the things he’d done. Her own heart breaks too, for her friends who’ve gone through all of this, and _alone_ , but she sucks in a deep breath and looks back at Molly with a bright grin.

She takes the pendant off her horn, and fixes it into one of the holes drilled through one of Molly’s. He tilts his head this way and that, watching the dim firelight shine and gleam off it, and leans back in contentment. It’s nothing like the horn jewelry he used to wear, bright glittering things that screamed _I’m here, get used to it, get used to me,_ but it’s a start.

“I know where we can get more, and if you want, we can shop together,” she whispers into his ear. Molly hums in answer, and she supposes that’s the closest she’ll get to a _yes_ out of him, for the moment.

Just before she goes to bed, Nott stops her and says, looking up at her, “We’ll solve this case. We will. We are—”

“The _best_ detectives,” Jester completes, and just saying it makes her feel better. “Together, we can solve any case.”

Nott nods, and says, with conviction in her voice, “And we’re going to get justice. For Molly and for Caleb.”

Jester nods. “But first,” she says, “we need to find some diamond dust.”


	3. death in a tarot card

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Panic! at the Disco's "Dying in LA".
> 
> 1/26/19: edits made to reflect canon developments. spoilers up until ep 49.

They roll up to the town’s gates the next morning. Molly hasn’t dreamed of anything through the night, which Caleb supposes means, hopefully, that Astrid used up that spell in yesterday’s bullshit, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be in for a repeat later in the day. Or later tonight. As long as there’s a link between the two of them, Astrid has a way into Molly’s head, and Caleb can tell it grates on Molly as much as it grates on everyone else, to not be able to trust himself.

Fjord charms their way through the gates, helped along by Beau claiming official Cobalt Soul business and Jester throwing out mention of her mother the Ruby of the Sea, and no one really notices the purple tiefling half-buried in an eyesore of an overcoat, or the goblin hiding under a blanket, or the almost-warmage and the Xhorhasian keeping their heads low under brown hoods. The guards wave them through with little fuss, and Caleb breathes a sigh of relief as they pass.

The town, called Lynbroke, is a sight better than most of the towns the Mighty Nein have been to so far. Far more prosperous, at least at first glance: Caleb sees stalls and stores crowded with customers, sees women bustling about in the latest fashions, sees festival lanterns being strung up over their heads. Molly startles a little when someone passes them by while blowing a horn, calling out _get your Lady Margaret lollipops here, only a copper a pop!_

“Lady who,” says Nott.

Caleb laughs, and says, “Lady Margaret of Lynbroke—she was a mage during one of the earliest wars of the Dwendalian Empire. My mother, she used to tell me stories of her: she was loyal to her country and her king, the wisest councilor there was in the little kingdom the Empire used to be. She’s said to have done many things, centuries ago.”

“Yeah, like killed a fucking hydra by herself,” Beau supplies. “I think that’s how this weird-ass festival came about.”

“Something like that,” says Caleb. “I was told it was summoned by the Empire’s enemy, and she defeated it after nine days and nine nights.”

“Without breaks?” says Jester.

“They didn’t push even the hunters that far in my tribe,” says Yasha, frowning.

“It’s a story, it probably didn’t happen the way they say it did,” says Caleb, scratching his beard. “Although it took place during the Age of Arcanum, so perhaps there may be some truth to the claims. At the very least she existed, and she was a powerful wizard who could do almost anything she put her mind to.”

Molly scoots closer, leaning forward now with interest. He’s even nudged Jester out of the way, which perhaps says a lot about how this story, this festival has caught his attention. It’s a relief to see again on his face. (It’s a relief to see his face at all.)

“So,” says Fjord, “nine days and nine nights, huh?”

“It doesn’t start today,” says Caleb, waving a hand at the stalls that are just now beginning to go up. “These are preparations.”

“This is them _prepping_ for a party? I knew they went hard for her here, but this is insane,” says Beau, incredulous. She turns to Molly and says, “Hey, it’s your town! Nine days and nine nights of non-stop partying!”

Molly does something that Caleb has not heard out of him in a very, very long time: he chuckles. It’s muffled into the sleeve of his coat, but he’s grinning at Beau and there’s a brightness to his red eyes that Caleb has missed so very much. He hadn’t quite realized how much, actually, until today. For a moment he can almost fool himself into believing that everything is all right, that Molly will joke about Beau and Yasha’s flirting going nowhere again, or that he’ll mention perhaps setting up a table for himself to read tarot cards, or that he’ll look at Caleb and smile and say _Mr. Caleb—_

“We need to find an inn,” says Fjord, breaking the spell. “And we gotta find diamond dust. And _then_ we gotta figure out what to do next, with everything that’s been happening lately.”

“And that’s if Jester doesn’t go nuts,” says Beau, which sobers everyone up. Molly, in particular, glances worriedly at Jester, and shakes his head as if to tell her not to worry about him.

“If you have a better plan I would totally love to hear it!” says Jester. “But since we don’t, we’ll take that plan. I know you guys will find a way to reverse it, anyway, if you need to.” She grins cheerily at them, but something behind her eyes, some desperation in her tone, makes it ring clearly false. The risk scares her as much as it does the rest of them—she is, after all, their friend, and the only healer they have right now who isn’t wandering or tethered to a temple in Shady Creek Run, and perhaps the closest thing this group of assholes has to someone who’s actually trustworthy in some way. Caleb honestly wishes he had some better way to fix what’s been done to Molly.

But he doesn’t. Greater Restoration’s their best shot, and he knows it. They all do.

So Fjord steers them towards the nearest inn. Then another. Then another. Then another.

By the time they finally find an inn, it’s nearing late afternoon, and they’ve gone from the prosperous parts of the town to the slightly more rundown parts, the streets that have not caught the attention of the rich just yet, the people who have not been crowded slowly out of their homes by rising prices of their rents and their houses, rising tithes. The people eye them with more suspicion here, mostly because they are a mixed group: two tieflings, an aasimar, a half-orc, two humans, and what looks like a halfling at first glance is bound to draw _some_ attention their way.

Molly sinks deeper into his coat, clearly uncomfortable with the stares. Astrid wasn’t exactly subtle, but she did like working in the shadows better than Caleb did. It stands to reason she made sure to mold Molly for that sort of work. She probably even tried to come up with some ridiculous title. She and Eodwulf always went in for that, and Caleb had always thought it was something of an endearment, as he had never really seen the point.

_Let me make this clear: my name is Molly._

He tastes the ashes in the back of his throat, and swallows it down. Whatever title Astrid thought to bestow on Molly, it doesn’t matter here and now. What matters is that they get Molly back, strip away the strings, get him back on his feet. And first they need diamond dust.

\--

The first thing Jester does when she walks into the tavern is grab Molly by the arm and haul him down, just as a bottle comes sailing past over their heads. He strangles a cry of surprise in his throat, but she still hears it as a slightly indignant squawk, which is super adorable and breaks her heart even further. Molly’s here. He’s not dead. But someone dug their claws into his head and he can’t pry them out.

So she has to help.

But first they need to find rooms, and—

“ _Fuck you, you shit-ridden son of a bitch!_ ” someone screams, somewhere in the gathering crowd. A chair crashes into the wall as Yasha comes in, then Beau, with a gleeful look on her face that says she’s finally found her people and will be joining them as soon as possible.

Jester wants to join her. She looks at Molly, who’s watching what little they can see of the fight with a weird frown, and taps his shoulder with a finger. “I’m gonna go check out the fight,” she says, jerking her thumb over to where the fight’s going on. There’s people shouting now, screaming _fifty gold on the big one, with the broken nose_ and _smart money’s on skinny bastard there_. Jester wants in on that as soon as possible, if Beau does too.

Molly blinks at her, opens his mouth, then closes it. Whatever’s keeping him from saying anything that he wants to, it’s not stopping him from giving her a look like she just told him _I’m going to try and beat Nott and Yasha combined at a rat-eating contest, wish me luck_. Which, ew.

“I’ll be fine, Molly,” she says. She glances around, and sees Fjord skirting around the crowd to go talk to the bartender, a gnomish guy with a bad mullet and a scar pulling up the right corner of his lip, wiping down a glass. “I’m probably not gonna end up in the fight, anyway. I have to,” _ugh_ , if only Clay had stuck around for longer, “save my spells.”

Molly huffs out a breath. She can see him trying to work out the words, trying to work out how to get them across without saying anything, before he pauses and points at his moon bauble, then at her. Then he waves a hand to the door leading outside.

“Wait, you want me to go with you?” she asks.

He shakes her head, gestures again to the lone, lonely trinket hanging from his horn, to the jewelry hanging from hers. It hits like a lightning bolt, then— _we can shop together_. He’s asking her to be careful so she can keep that promise. She smiles, and carefully places a kiss to the top of his forehead, feels him freeze then melt into her touch. He wouldn’t have frozen months ago, she thinks. He would’ve just melted, right away, and they would’ve spent time gossiping in Infernal just for kicks.

Oh, how her heart breaks.

But she sets that aside, and pulls away from Molly, who settles down behind the table. She pushes past the crowd to Beau and Yasha, and says, “What’s going on?”

Beau points to the big woman, with skin just a shade lighter than Beau’s, the color of Jester’s mom’s favorite box of powders. Her eyes are dark with anger, her black hair rapidly escaping the already-messy ponytail she stuck it in. She’s also pinning a man with half-elven features to the ground, snarling something in Orcish that Jester doesn’t quite get. She cuts a glance over at Fjord to see if he’s heard it, but all he’s doing is talking to the bartender, so chances are he did not. Shame.

“I give! I give!” the man screams with every punch the woman drives into his face. Jester hears a _crack_ —yeah, that’s his nose. “Ver, fuck, I fucking _give_!”

“Let him up, Verrin!” the bartender calls. “You pummeled him but good anyway! And for all our sakes can everyone stop being loud enough to call the Crownsguard from the _other_ side of town?!”

The crowd’s noise doesn’t dissipate immediately, even as the woman, Verrin, reluctantly gets off her bruised and bloodied opponent, but eventually they start to drift away as she returns to her drink. She glares at the rest of them for good measure, as if daring them to come and try to interrupt her now.

Beau whistles lowly. “That was kinda fuckin’ hot,” she murmurs.

“Definitely,” Jester agrees.

Yasha crosses her arms and tucks some strands of hair back from her face. There’s a distinct sourness to her frown that Jester recognizes almost immediately: the frown of the Jealous. “I mean, I don’t know,” she mutters. “I’ve. I’ve punched a lot of people unconscious.”

“You totally did,” Beau agrees, “and it’s awesome. But we need a guide, and I say we talk to her.” She jerks a thumb at Verrin, who’s halfway through her drink.

“You just wanna talk to her,” says Jester.

“I mean, _yeah_ , that’s a bonus,” says Beau, stepping over what looks like an unconscious patron. Jester also steps over him, but she does prod him enough to turn him over so he doesn’t, like, choke on his own puke or something. That would suck a lot. “Now come on. That drink’s not gonna last forever.”

Verrin’s already finishing her drink by the time they get there, and she blinks blearily up at the three of them. “Oh, hell,” she says. “What the fuck do you want? An’ if you say _my drink back_ , fuck you, you left it here, it’s mine now.”

“We just arrived!” says Jester. “I’m Jester. This is Yasha, and this is—”

“Bone,” says Beau. “I mean. _Buffy_. I mean. _Beau._ ”

“Bone-Buffy-Beau,” says Verrin. “Weird fucking name, Bone.” She tosses back the remnants of her drink and slams the glass down hard on the table, enough that the bottom shatters from under her. “Fuck,” she says, succinctly, dropping the remnants onto the table and picking out the shards from her hand.

“Oh, let me,” says Jester, grabbing hold of her hand.

Verrin grabs her by the front of her blouse and says, “Do not _fucking_ —”

“Back _off_ ,” Yasha snaps, stepping in between them. She’s much taller than Verrin is, and definitely taller than Jester too. Jester leans to the side to let Verrin see her and waves, just as Beau steps in beside Yasha too, twirling her staff around in her hand.

“I was going to say I’m a healer,” she says, “but if you’re gonna be _rude_ about it—”

“You grabbed my fucking arm!” says Verrin, backing up. “You don’t—Where the fuck did you grow up, dumbass, a barn or something? You don’t just grab people’s arms! Bad shit happens when you do that, like you losing a damn arm ‘cause you don’t fucking _know how to_ —”

Something cracks, on the periphery of Jester’s hearing. Molly practically melts out of the shadows just a few seconds later, pointing the splintered end of a glowing table leg at Verrin. Blood drips from his arm, and there’s something almost cold in his eyes. Jester’s seen Molly happy and charming, vulnerable and broken, even panicked and frustrated, but she’s never seen him look so _cold_ before.

Some of the crowd who’d been drifting away very interestedly drift back.

Verrin stares at Molly, then at Yasha and Beau, then at Jester. Blood drips from her own hand, from the shards still embedded in it. “You’re fucking assholes,” she says, but she sounds stunned. Like she hadn’t expected Molly to show up. Suddenly Jester wonders—is this someone from Molly’s old life? The one that put someone named Lucien in the grave, the first time, and brought Molly forth?

“Yeah, but you threatened to rip my friend’s arm off,” says Beau.

“That wasn’t what I was talking about, and I didn’t _say_ I would,” says Verrin, waving at Molly. “You tourist fucks have a _blood hunter_. What the _fuck_?”

\--

“So let me get this straight,” says Caleb, once Jester’s caught him up on what’s happened so far, “while Nott and I were finding a stable for the horses, Mollymauk almost got into a bar fight with someone who recognized his abilities, because that same someone threatened to rip your arm off for touching her.”

“Uh-huh,” says Jester, sipping at a glass of milk.

“And now we’ve...hired her?” says Caleb, looking at the half-drunk, messy-haired, wild-eyed woman currently sandwiched between Yasha and Molly, who are both watching her with narrowed eyes. Molly’s arm has been bandaged up, and the table leg he’d cut himself with is nowhere to be seen.

“We’re _discussing_ hiring her, because we need to be smarter with our money,” says Jester. Caleb glances at Fjord, who shrugs and mouths, _go with it_. “But we both said sorry, ‘cause I did grab her arm, and she did threaten me.”

“I mean, it _could_ be worse, it’s not like we met Keg or Nila or Deuces under the best conditions either,” Nott pipes up. She’s got a small knife out, though, and is pointing it directly at the woman, who’s squinting at Nott like she’s not sure what she’s seeing, a halfling or somebody who’s very good at looking like one. “But also,” she adds, glaring up at the woman, “don’t fuck with us! We’re _very mean._ ”

“Your fucking cleric pulled glass out of my hand not fifteen minutes ago and healed me for a glass of milk,” says the stranger.

“We’re lulling you into a false sense of security!” says Nott, her voice climbing higher and higher.

“Yes, Jester can be something of an exception,” says Caleb, eliciting a cheery _thanks_ from their cleric and a raised glass from Molly, “but by and large, we’re a group of assholes, and we’ve not had the best few months so far. If you fuck us in any way, we will make sure you regret it. The Iron Shepherds did, and painfully.” Lorenzo should’ve taken far, far longer to die than he did. Caleb had the shot and _the fucker should’ve burned longer_ , that first time.

The woman tilts her head up, and says, “ _You’re_ the ones who killed the Shepherds? Huh.” She shifts in her seat, and says, “Verrin. Since apparently, we’re working together now, and I’m supposed to show you ‘round.” She snorts out a short, derisive bark of laughter, just to show how she feels about this whole arrangement. “Fuck, you tourists arrived at the worst possible time, though. There’s too damn _many_ of you. What, you couldn’t find a good tour guide on time, is that it?”

“We’re the Mighty Nein, yeah, and it’s more like we didn’t actually think we’d stop by here,” Fjord says, taking a sip of his watered ale. “Circumstances pushed us here, though, and now we’re a bit at loose ends over where exactly we should go in town. We figured asking a local for help wouldn’t hurt. Besides,” and he lowers his voice just a little, “some of us don’t feel like attracting a lot of attention, right now. Especially not attention from the more official parts of town. You get that, right?”

“I get it,” says Verrin, after a moment, drumming her fingers on the table. “You’re fucking criminals. Nobody who goes to the fucking Run and comes out of it not only alive but with a body count including the Iron Shepherds is going to be anything other than a career criminal.” She leans back into her chair and says, “I’m not judging. I’d be a hypocrite, if I did. ‘S’like the raven calling the crow black.” She’d drape if she could, Caleb thinks, she seems the sort of person who feels comfortable enough in her own skin to do so, but she’s boxed in by Yasha and Molly, and every so often her eyes dart to Molly and narrow. She’d known what kind of powers Molly had. The implications of that knowledge range from the innocent to the deeply dangerous.

They are going to have to keep an eye on this woman. Caleb already doesn’t like this. They still need to gather diamond dust for Molly, and then perhaps find out where Astrid is, and _then_ find some way to keep her and Ikithon from making another way into Molly’s head, and all this without hopefully driving Jester insane and having to make a trip to Shady Creek Run to ask Caduceus for a favor. Now they’re hiring a strange woman who drinks like Beau does to show them around.

Speaking of the woman, Verrin reaches out for Nott’s glass and gets her hand smacked for her trouble. “Ow! _Fuck_ , you’ve got some fucking sharp nails for a halfling,” she says, drawing her hand back. “Fine, I’ll show you around, but first I want payment. One hundred gold.”

“Bit much,” says Yasha, evenly.

Molly nods.

“One hundred gold,” says Verrin.

“You’re hot, don’t get me wrong, but you’re not worth that much money,” says Beau, starting to stand.

Jester props her chin up in her hands and says, “Do you know the best place where we can find diamond dust? And Caleb is a wizard, so do you know where we can find, like, super rare stuff?”

“There’s the Silver Castle emporium, you can find all sorts of shit there,” says Verrin, looking Jester in the eye, “but that gets real popular ‘round this time, so you’ll be hard-pressed to even get in through the door, with the fucking crowds. You want something a little less popular, somewhere you won’t draw a lot of attention, you’ll want to head to Lestra’s.”

“Lestra?” says Nott.

“Oh, jeez,” says Beau, with a groan, covering her face. “She moved here?”

“You know this Lestra?” Nott asks.

“Yeah, I used to supply her and her buddies with my dad’s wine for five gold a bottle,” says Beau. “She was such a dick about the pricing too. And the _lines_ that came out of her mouth.”

“You did _what_ ,” says Caleb, deciding not to point out that he’s heard much worse lines coming out of Beau while trying to flirt with Yasha. “How reliable is this Lestra?”

“Very reliable,” says Verrin, lying.

“She knows how much value shit holds, yeah, no worries about that,” says Beau, “but she’ll cut corners if she thinks it’ll get her a better deal. She’s cheap like that, despite all the fancy talk. You get anything from her, you look closer at what you’re looking at. Best way to get what you need out of her is to do her a favor, from what I remember, because otherwise she’ll just get cheap with you no matter how amazing she says you are.” Beau leans in closer to Verrin, and says, “Where’s Lestra now?”

“Pay me first and I’ll show you,” says Verrin. “I’m not doing this for free. I want one hundred gold if I’m showing you around for the whole festival—in fact I want more than that, but I’m being _generous_.”

Jester puts a small sack of coins down and says, “We can pay you fifty gold now and then once everything’s done, we’ll give you the rest. Okay? We’re trying to be better with our money ‘cause we ran into—a little bit of trouble, with the Shepherds.” Caleb doesn’t miss the way she glances to Molly, who looks down at his hands and picks idly at the hem of his colorful sleeves.

They had tried so _hard_ , to get him back. They’d gotten the cleric, the spell, the components. And then when they found the grave, Molly wasn’t _there_ anymore: he’d dug his own way out, from what any of them could tell, and seemingly taken his cloak with him. They’d all _looked_.

Looking at Molly, at the scar across his eyebrow, the way he seems to shrink in on himself when he thinks no one else is looking, Caleb wonders if they should’ve tried harder in finding him. If they should’ve sprung for the more expensive materials, scraped together for the more powerful spells. If they should have—

Molly glances up, and it’s as if a switch has flicked on, somehow. He flashes a small smile at Caleb, as if to reassure him, and straightens up in his seat a little bit more, tugging his coat tighter around himself. He keeps smiling, and if Caleb didn’t know any better, wasn’t close enough to see the way Molly’s hand shakes, he’d say Molly’s doing just fine.

Verrin picks up the fifty gold, sighs, and pockets it. “Fine,” she says. “Deal. Now—where do you want me to take you guys?”

“You’ll take me and Jester to Lestra’s,” says Fjord. “Beau, you coming with us? She’s an old friend of yours, might be she’d like to see you again.”

“We weren’t friends,” says Beau, “and no, I’m not coming with.” She jerks a thumb over at Molly, who blinks red eyes at her and props his cheek up on the palm of his hand, watching her and her staff with some wariness. “Somebody’s gotta keep an eye on Molly here, and it’s my turn anyway, so.”

“Nott, Yasha and I will head to the Silver Castle, then,” says Caleb. Nott nods, and then twists the cap off her flask and takes a long, long drink. Jester downs the rest of her milk, and licks off the traces of milk on her upper lip. “They might have fine papers and inks there, as well as other components. Incense, charcoal, sand.” He needs his cat back, as soon as possible.

“We’ll meet back up here in a few hours,” says Fjord, standing up and pressing four room keys into Beau’s hand. “If anything goes south on the trip, we’ll let you two know soon as possible.”

“And if anything goes to shit here,” says Beau, “one of us’ll just scream loudly for help.”

“Nott has very big ears,” says Caleb, mildly. “She may just be able to hear you.”

Molly, sipping at his ale, almost chokes on his drink. He sets it down and muffles a giggle with his tattooed hand. For a moment, things are almost good, almost okay.

They’ll make it right. They’ll make it better. They have to.

\--

“Well, this is a fucking palace,” says Beau, dropping her stuff onto the bed. “What do you think?” she asks Molly, unthinkingly, before she remembers: he doesn’t talk. He _can’t_ talk, fuck knows why. Caleb had said something about a healer taking the clouds away, and she has to wonder if there’s something clouding Molly’s ability to talk right now beyond just the post-resurrection bullshit.

Everything about this mess fucking sucks, in Beau’s opinion. She’s sure Molly would agree with her, if he could speak.

Molly’s coming in now, stopping in place at the doorway like he’s not completely sure what he’s doing here. Then he walks over to the bed and presses down experimentally on it. It’s not exactly the softest bed in the world, and the pillows are lumpy and misshapen, but Molly smiles a little and settles down on the bed, taking his coat off and draping it reverently over a chair. His tail flicks about, a sign of contentment, and now that Beau knows to look for them, she can see the remnants of precise scarring where someone must’ve cast Inflict Wounds on it.

As far as she knows, only clerics can do that. What kind of magic had Caleb said he and his classmates were meant to do? Were they only supposed to stick to one way of magic, or did warmages allow a little bit of variety? Having a healer on hand might be useful, and if that healer’s as brainwashed as the rest of your little troop—

Her hand clenches into a fist. She breathes in, then out, and slowly releases it. She looks down at her hand and winces at the half-crescent indents left behind.

Molly’s flopped back onto the bed. God, he looks like he’s in heaven just from being in a real bed, not tied up in the back of the cart, not—whatever the hell kind of condition Caleb’s old friend Astrid and that Ikithon bastard kept him in. Not for the first time, she wishes she had some way to contact Dairon beyond heading to the Cobalt Soul’s place in Zadash and hoping to catch her there. Between Molly and Caleb, that’s already too many people Beau sort of cares about that Ikithon’s fucked up.

She moves over to join him on the bed. He scoots over to let her have room, but she sits on the edge and takes out his deck from her pockets. She’d wrapped it carefully in twine and brown paper, thinking she’d use it in the ritual that never was. Now she unwraps it with just as much care.

He sits up behind her, the bed creaking as he does. She’s caught his interest.

“These are yours,” she says, as he scoots up next to her. “You remember them, right? Bullshit cards you use to steer people’s destinies?”

Molly tilts his face heavenwards, which is really the only indication she has that he rolled his eyes at her. But he looks back at her and down at the cards in her hand. His hand comes up, shaking, as if to take them back.

Then he seems to think better of it, and inches away. He curls up, pulling his knees up to his chest like he’s doing so often now, and his sleeve falls enough to expose his arm—it’s always pretty cut up, what with his weird blood powers and all, but there’s ugly scars that haven’t healed completely over now too. Like someone cut into him with a knife with a surgeon’s eye for precision. Like someone wanted to know how he could do what he could do.

Bile rises in Beau’s throat, but she stomps it down hard, ruthlessly. “They’re yours,” she says. “I don’t know how to use them. I’m not going to bullshit people the way you do. Did. _Do._ ”

Molly looks at her from under hooded eyes, hair falling back into his face. It’s wildly unkempt, nothing like the carefully-maintained hairstyle Molly used to have, and it makes him look half-feral. Like the monster under the bed that people’s parents are supposed to tell them about, when they’re younger, to scare them into behaving. He looks at the tarot cards again, and makes a soft little noise.

Fuck, what she wouldn’t give just to hear him be snippy at her again.

“Say something,” she says, pushing as far as she can. “Anything. Say I’m an asshole, or unpleasant, or a trash person. Come on. Be a smarmy little _dick_ , Molly.”

Molly huffs out a breath, and shakes his head. He places a hand just a few inches above his throat and mimes squeezing it tighter, and Beau thinks she could almost understand.

“What, someone enchanted you to shut up or something?” she asks. She would never have thought it possible before now, but here they are.

He nods, and absently runs his hand through his hair, pulling it back and exposing his tattoos. At the very least they didn’t get somehow stripped away from him by someone trying to make a weapon out of him, like his jewelry and his very identity. It’s a lot harder to take off tattoos than it is to take those off, Beau’s found.

But there are scars, still. It’s easier to see with his hair out of the way, but there are scars across the inked designs where the crystals Caleb once told them about must’ve been embedded into Molly’s skin, the same kind of scars on the arm that hasn’t been inked up so much. There’s a scar on his neck, like someone had placed something over it that didn’t fit quite right and his skin had chafed against it. These scars have healed over poorly enough that Beau can see where they interrupt the designs, except for the red eyes that Molly had pointed out to them so long ago. Nothing, it seems, can interrupt those.

“Fuck,” she says, succinctly, and Molly blinks at her and lets his hair fall back, screening the scars from view. “ _Fuck_ , Molly, you—god, no wonder you’re so fucked up now.” They’re all pretty fucked up in their own way in this little group of theirs, but this is a level that Beau is honestly not sure she knows how to deal with. Other than punching the people responsible and trying to be slightly better, as a person, which means that she turns now to face Molly, and grabs his shoulder tight.

Molly freezes up again, flinches away from her. She turns him to face her, and sees him steeling himself for something, bracing for hurt. Goddammit, her heart is _cracking_ for this asshole.

“Whoever enchanted and tortured you, whatever they told you,” she says, firmly, “they were lying through their fucking teeth. Got it?”

Molly stares at her, and god, he’s always been kind of an open person. He’s even worse at hiding his feelings now, she can see the fear and the trepidation, and—fuck—some flicker of _hope_. Then he reaches up a hand to wrap around her wrist, and very gently takes it off his shoulder before he reaches over for his cards. His hand shakes as his fingers brush against them, but when she turns them over into his palm, not one of them falls out to the ground.

He draws his hand back, looks down at the tarot cards. He cuts and shuffles them, then draws a card at random and frowns down at it. Beau cranes her neck to see the Matron of Ravens on top of a horse, dressed for battle, holding her head high and proud. She racks her memory for the meaning of the card, the bullshit Molly used to spew just for kicks when he pulled it from the deck, and says, “Death, Molly? Really? All the cards to pull and you pick that one, just to be dramatic about it.”

Molly shakes his head, eyebrows drawing together in worry. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but shuts it again, blowing out a frustrated breath as the enchantment apparently kicks in. He shakes his head again, more vigorously this time, and reshuffles the deck. Once more he draws the card, and once more Death comes back out.

“Okay, now you’re just doing this on purpose,” says Beau.

Molly flips her off. Which, fair. She’s doing better at being a good person, but she’s still got a long way to go before she gets there, if she ever does.

He shuffles the deck, again. Draws the card, _again_. Shows it to her, _again_ : the Raven Queen, still, her face a smooth porcelain shell. Okay, this is definitely getting freaky, she can see the _terror_ on Molly’s face, like he doesn’t know what the hell this is supposed to mean. That’s not the kind of thing someone can just fake, unless they’re a really good actor, and Molly’s a lot of things, but he’s never been the best actor Beau’s ever known even at the best of times.

This is not the best of times.

“What the _hell_ ,” she says, leaning over his shoulder to squint at the card, as if it might change if she stares at it hard enough. Molly’s hands shake as he reshuffles the deck, then reaches over to his coat to slide them into a pocket. The deck falls out of his hand, though, and the cards scatter all over the floor. Molly slams his fist into the mattress with a wordless noise of frustration, and all but flings himself off the bed to start gathering them up again.

Beau, very unnecessarily, vaults over the bed, landing lightly on her feet. “Lemme help,” she says, already gathering up the nearest cards and arranging them to the best of her memory. Molly looks up at her, then looks back down and continues gathering his cards back up, stacking them back together.

They work in silence for a few more minutes, counting out the cards in their hands.

They’re one short when they finish, and Molly gets down on his knees and reaches underneath the bed for it with an annoyed huff of breath. He yanks the card out, flips it over, and goes so horribly still that for a minute Beau’s pretty sure he’s about to snap back into what she’s come to think of as “feral fighty Molly” mode.

He doesn’t. Instead he slumps down on the bed and wordlessly flicks the card over to Beau, who catches it in her hand. She turns it over and stares down at the Raven Queen’s porcelain mask once more.

Once or twice, she can chalk it up to Molly fucking with her for a laugh. Four times, with Molly looking worse than he did when they first met with Cree in Zadash? Something’s up here, and fuck if either she or Molly know what.

She sits down next to him. He’s shuffled his deck again, restless and jittery with fright. “Why the hell do you even have that card?” she asks, not expecting an answer from him. “You wanna steer people onto the right path, you don’t scare the shit out of them with the Death card. Or—yeah, maybe you did. Knowing you, you totally would scare them.” But he wouldn’t scare himself, this badly.

Sure enough, Molly just shrugs. He picks the Death card from Beau’s fingers and slides it back into the deck. Then he puts the deck into one of the coat’s pockets once more. He doesn’t meet her eyes the entire time, and his tail is lashing around, agitated and restless.

The Death card means the end of something, the coming of a change that would shake the foundations of someone’s whole world, Beau remembers that. What that _something_ is, she doesn’t know what, and hell—when is that end even supposed to take place? Did it happen in the past, is it happening now, will it happen in the future? It’s a frustratingly vague warning to bestow on someone, and it reminds her a little too much of Yasha’s frequent comings and goings in service to the Storm Lord.

Molly flops back onto the bed, letting out a tired sigh. Beau stands up and steps closer to the window, to the town just outside preparing for a celebration. Even here there’s still some preparation, although it isn’t quite as grand as the entrance had been: strings of unlit lanterns here and there, little triangles of brown and red and blue draped haphazardly over doorways, a couple of smaller stalls calling out, _piragua, one copper a cone!_ or _meat pies, one copper a slice and one silver for the whole thing!_

She turns to look at Molly after a couple of minutes spent people-watching, and says, “Hey, Molly, how about we both head out and get a meat pie?”

She pauses.

Molly’s shut his eyes and curled up on the bed around a lumpy pillow, looking so weirdly small and vulnerable as a result. Judging from how quiet he is, he’s somewhere in that half-awake half-asleep place right now. He’ll tip over into sleep quickly enough, so Beau tiptoes closer and drapes his beloved coat over him.

She sees the corners of his lips turn up in a small smile, when she does.


	4. bleeding out for you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Imagine Dragons’ “Bleeding Out”.
> 
> edited slightly to reflect developments in episode 42!

The Silver Castle Emporium, named after the home of Lady Margaret, is _crowded_ with people. It’s so crowded that the moment Caleb sees it he’s tempted to just turn on his heel and walk very quickly back to the inn, but Yasha is already striding forward with the grimly determined look of a soldier going to war, and Nott is scampering along behind her. Caleb has to sigh, and take up the rear behind them, careful not to make eye contact with anyone else in the shop when they enter.

“So,” says Nott, “we need lots of paper and ink, we need sand and molasses—”

“I’m all right on the molasses,” says Caleb. “I would not say no to any more sand, though, I am running low.”

“—maybe there’s diamond dust here?” Nott hopefully says. “I know Jester’s looking at Lestra’s, but maybe we could find some supplies here.”

“With the war on, I’m not so certain,” says Caleb.

“And Fjord wants a new breastplate,” says Yasha. “And I need new boots.” She holds up her boots, and sure enough, the soles are barely clinging onto Jester’s stick of gum. “Oh, and Beau wants throwing stars.”

Oh, no, not this again. “You buy the throwing stars,” says Caleb, quickly. “She will be far more impressed by your thoughtfulness than by mine.” Mostly because it’s Yasha that Beau has an impossibly gigantic crush on—Caleb is, at best, someone whose secret she has to keep from everyone else. Had to keep. She must be relieved now, not to be the only one besides Nott to know how much of a liability Caleb could be to them.

“I don’t know,” Yasha mumbles.

“She’ll like it better if it came from you,” Caleb assures her, watching Nott peel away into the crowd and discreetly start picking pockets. He notes that everyone whose pocket she picked seems far ruder than they perhaps ought to be at the moment. Eh, they’ll live. “You are someone she finds—intriguing.”

“Oh,” says Yasha, faintly blushing. “I didn’t know I was the subject of intrigue. Is that—good, do you think?”

“It depends on the kind of intrigue, I suppose,” says Caleb, with a shrug. He presses himself flat against the shelf to let someone with a towering stack of papers pass, before continuing on, “Although I have a feeling this is the good kind. So _ja_ , it’s good for you to be the subject of her intrigue, just this once.”

Yasha’s pale face has turned a light shade of pink. Caleb turns to walk towards the aisle of the store that offers arcane-quality materials, and hears her heavy footsteps behind him. “That’s—thank you,” she says, as he starts piling up the papers. He grabs a jar of charcoal and incense, too.

“You’re welcome,” he says.

They continue shopping in companionable silence, with Caleb mentally counting out the gold he’ll have to pay out, until Yasha says, “How did he know to find us?”

“Hm?”

“Your friend,” she clarifies. “The mage who had Molly. You said you had a necklace that kept you from being found, so how did he find us?”

Oh. “Yonnah,” he says. His hands are too full, he can’t reach up and feel the necklace that’s keeping him safe, but that’s been on his mind too. “I can’t be found,” he says, “and neither can anything on my person, but someone else who has—drawn attention to themselves, even if I am traveling with them, they can still be found. And we’ve made a name for ourselves, and, ha, made a couple of _enemies_ , too.”

“Do you have an idea which one of them it could be?” says Yasha.

“The family the Iron Shepherds worked for come to mind,” says Caleb, seeing Yasha go still at the name of the slavers that took her and killed Mollymauk. “But I don’t doubt Ikithon wanted to follow up on his interest in you. And there is Jester’s Lord Robert, who might still want her dead for humiliating him.”

“It’s been _months_ ,” says Yasha.

“Lords have very long memories when it comes to having been humiliated,” says Caleb. “Beau’s parents might want her back at any cost. There is even the possibility that our association with the Gentleman, and the assistance we’ve given him in rising to the top, has made us targets for some of the shadier families of Zadash. Perhaps the Revelry has a longer reach than we thought they did.” He turns now to her, his arms full of paper and ink and charcoal and incense and sand. “The problem is that we don’t _know_ , not for certain, we’ve made too many powerful enemies making a name for ourselves. Not until Mollymauk can speak of it, and in his current state, that will not be happening soon.”

Yasha sighs, and crosses her arms. Her hand rubs absently at her forearm, and she steps aside to let a small girl in a pointed hat with a broom run down the aisle, shrieking with excitement. “Is there anyone else besides your friend and your mentor,” she says, “who might have—some way, of making Molly do what they wanted?”

“Mollymauk would be a useful resource, for Ikithon and his fellows and the people who worked for them,” says Caleb. “I expect there are. Certainly _Yonnah_ could direct him to do what he asked.” He steps aside to let the girl’s mother, a half-elf in a noblewoman’s finery, run after the girl in a flash of blue. “All of that said, we are safe for now.”

“For now,” Yasha echoes. “What about later?”

“Later, we’ll be undoing what’s been done to Mollymauk,” says Caleb. “And we will be in a lot of trouble then, if Jester is affected the same way the healer was.”

“You don’t know if she will be,” says Yasha. “You said your healer was a patient in the asylum as well. Maybe Jester has a better chance.”

Nott ambles up behind Caleb, lifts up a shiny blue feather for his inspection, and tucks it away behind her ear for safekeeping. “Are we talking about Jester?” she says.

“We’re talking about Jester’s chances of getting out of the restoration unscathed,” says Caleb.

“I think she might!” Nott says, desperately optimistic. The tips of her mouth peek out over the edges of her mask, almost manic at the idea. “She absolutely will. It’s Jester. She’ll be fine. She’ll be completely fine.” There’s a moment, before she adds, in a faux-nonchalant tone that means she’s worrying more about this than _Caleb_ is, “She’ll be okay!”

“I hope so,” says Caleb. Jester’s one of the best people he knows, her propensity for drawing dicks in the most inconvenient places aside. She isn’t just the healer of the group, she might honestly be the heart of it. Caleb _cares_ about her, the way he used to care for Astrid, as if she’s the closest thing he has to a sister. If she goes mad because of this—

Well, Caleb already can’t forgive himself for a number of things. He doesn’t know if he can add another to the pile.

And Molly—gods, if Jester went mad healing Molly, it would break Molly’s heart even more. They’re good friends, close friends, and already Caleb can tell how hesitant he is to risk Jester, even to get his own mind back. They all are.

“We could make another cleric do it,” says Nott, suddenly, losing the manic edge to her optimism. “Any other cleric! We know two of them, and they’re smart, they can avoid traps. Or, oh, we could _trick_ one of the Empire clerics! We don’t care what happens to _them_.”

“That could work,” says Yasha.

“And it’s _ironic_ , too,” says Nott, a gleam in her eye that isn’t quite the sunlight from the windows.

Caleb glances nervously around the crowded shop, scanning for anyone who might be listening into their conversation. He doesn’t spot anyone, but that doesn’t really mean no one’s _hearing_ this. Hopefully the noise of the crowd is enough to drown out their talk, enough to keep someone from hearing talk of trickery and treason. His fingers itch, under the gloves, and he tastes ashes in the back of his throat. He swallows it down with the ease of years of practice, smothers the fire and Trent’s voice (or his own) whispering _traitors should burn_.

“We could pretend Molly’s a Feeblemind victim,” Nott’s saying, “and Jester’s getting some practice with make-up, so we can cover up his tattoos a little bit. They don’t need to know how he got there, they just need to cast the spell—”

“They would remember us, though,” says Caleb, shifting his grip on his magical supplies and spotting a decorated book, golden swirls curling over the cover and spine in an eye-catching manner. It’s likely useless, magically speaking, but Caleb drifts over to pick it up anyway, along with a pencil. “We are a very distinctive group of assholes. And were we to pull something like that off, it’s likely they would simply bring in another cleric to restore the one that we tricked, and _then_ the game would be up. And that’s _if_ we pull it off, and _if_ we can find a cleric willing to cast Greater Restoration.” He looks around, and says, quietly, “And I know Astrid. This would come to her attention, and she would smell something off about it.”

“Wouldn’t she already smell something off about all of this?” says Nott.

“She already is,” says Caleb. “But right now we have the element of subterfuge, for a given value of subterfuge. She hasn’t caught on to our trail yet.” _Yet_ , anyway, although Caleb doesn’t think that element will last very long. They did kill Yonnah, and they do have Molly with them. Astrid is going to be on them sooner or later, that is an inevitability, but Caleb would rather they have _time_ to prepare for her. She didn’t break the way he did, she’s bound to have grown more powerful in the passing years where Caleb is still fumbling his way back to where he had been, before he broke. And that isn’t even getting into Ikithon, far more patient and far more powerful than Astrid or Eodwulf. “I’d rather we get an Empire cleric too, I do not want to risk Jester, but that would make us more vulnerable than we can afford to be.”

The unspoken spectre of how Molly’s death came about hangs over them: how _vulnerable_ they were, even with Keg backing them up, how they’d almost fractured in the wake of it with three missing members and Molly gone.

Yasha lets out a breath. “It’s on the table, though,” she says. “Just in case.”

For Jester and Molly’s sakes, Caleb hopes it doesn’t come to that.

\--

When Jester steps into Lestra’s, the first thing that hits her is the smell of the place: it’s a rioting clash of smells, from the fragrant to the pungent, and she has to cover her mouth just to keep herself from puking up her pastries. That’s how bad it is. The second is that, for how bad it smells, everything is sorted into neat little rows and arranged tastefully, neatly, in _order_. She grins. She’s going to have such fun in this store.

It helps that there’s not a whole lot of people here either. Verrin was right, this place isn’t as crowded as all the other shops Jester saw in Lynbroke. This whole _street_ isn’t as popular, actually, now that she thinks of it, and it’s not hard to see why: compared to the more crowded, more decorated streets that she and the Nein saw on their way in, the street that Lestra’s is on, and a lot of the streets surrounding it, is a little more run-down and grimy. The people here watch her and Fjord with a little more suspicion, like they aren’t sure what to make of either of them, but Verrin’s presence seems to keep the worst of it off their backs. Besides, she gets the sense that a lot of them are less surprised at the tiefling and the half-orc and more surprised at the _tourists_ at all, as Verrin put it.

Fjord leans over, squints at the supplies on display. “Yeah, I’m running out of those,” he mutters, ambling over to the jar of pickled octopus tentacles.

“You have like, _two_ , you definitely need to pick a lot more of those up,” says Jester, discreetly swapping some of the spices around while Fjord’s wandering around, picking stuff up. Verrin trails behind her, and when Jester looks back at her she’s got her eyebrows raised. “What?” she says, innocently.

“Nothing, apparently,” says Verrin, crossing her arms. “You’re. A little weird, honestly.”

Jester shrugs. It’s not the first time she’s gotten that, traveling with her friends, and she reasons that it could be a lot worse than someone just commenting that she’s weird. In her head, she hears an awful, ringing laugh. _You’ll fetch a high price, little girl._ She swallows the bile that rises in her throat at the thought, and her hand drifts to her holy symbol, fingers curling tight around it. It pulses warmly in her hand.

 _I’m here,_ the Traveler whispers in her ear.

“Mm, yeah, kinda,” she says to Verrin, drifting over to another section, with jars of less gross materials: jade dust, jeweled horns, glass eyes, rare oils, powders of black pearl and ruby and diamond. “How do you know Lestra?”

“I go here a lot,” says Verrin. “I get her stuff. In return I get booze money.”

“Don’t you get deals from her?” says Jester.

“That’s not the kind of arrangement she and I have,” says Verrin. “Anyway, what the hell would I need with half this shit? I don’t have any magic, not like—” She cuts herself off, and shakes her head, looking away from Jester and hunching in on herself. “You’re weird,” she says. “Why would you heal my hand? That used up one of your spells. I could’ve just dealt with it, wouldn’t be the first time I fucked up my own hand while drinking.”

“Like you’re the first person to ever do that around me,” Jester says. “I mean, yeah, I could’ve, but then we’d have to deal with you bleeding out while we were talking over hiring you, and that’s just really gross, so.” She shrugs, and after a moment, swaps the labels for the jade dust and the black pearl powder around. Then she picks up the jar of glass eyes and wanders casually over to the more exotic spell components, and replaces the newt eyes with that.

Verrin shakes her head, but doesn’t say a word about Jester swapping the jars around. In fact, Jester can swear she sees a corner of her mouth turn up a little, in a sad, faint smile, before she looks away and huffs out a sigh. “Well, thanks, I guess,” she says. “I mean, you’d be the first person I know who’s that considerate over their employees. This place is a shithole, under all the glitz and glamour and the _ooh Lady Margaret_ horseshit.”

“It’s not that bad,” says Jester. “You’ve never been to Labenda. Labenda doesn’t _have_ glitz and glamour, it’s just swamp muck all the way.”

“Sounds honest,” says Verrin, and Jester wrinkles her nose, wanders back over to the less exotic aisle to place the newt eyes where the glass eyes once were. “Oh, by the way, your half-orc friend’s back with Lestra.”

Jester turns now, ready to spout some excuse about the eyes, but relaxes when she sees that Fjord’s got Lestra thoroughly distracted—and _wow_ , Lestra’s kind of cute, her skin sparkling and iridescent like precious emeralds. There’s a tattoo snaking up the side of her neck, the same way as Molly’s peacock tattoo, but instead of a peacock, it’s flowers: daisies and sunflowers and roses, blooming up her neck and onto her face. She turns, and her eyes are _twinkling_ , like sapphires.

Verrin leans over and says, deadpan, “Shut your mouth, you’ll catch flies.”

Lestra spreads her arms wide and says, “Verris! Your friend Yord—”

“Fjord,” says Fjord, blushing and trying his hardest to retreat into his armor.

“Kord,” Lestra continues, “is so very interesting! Where did you dig him up? And who’s _this_ vision?” She steps closer, the heels of her boots clicking and echoing on the stone floor. “I’ve seen a lot of tieflings before, but no one quite so lovely as you.” She bows deeply in front of her, which is so flattering that Jester can’t help but giggle, and takes her hand and presses a kiss to her knuckles. “My name is Lestra! You?”

“Jester Fancybottom,” says Jester.

Lestra tilts her head to the side, and grins. “Miss _Fancybottom_ ,” she says, her voice low and sultry, with an accent that Jester can’t quite place but sounds very exotic. She straightens up, and sweeps her hand grandly out to indicate the whole of the shop. “My humble shop and I are yours for the hour, it seems! Yours and your friend’s, of course.”

Fjord coughs, and says, “That’s great, but, uh, we ain’t gonna be here that long. We’re just looking for diamond dust, is all.”

“You’re _much_ prettier than Beau said,” says Jester. “She was like, _yeah, don’t trust Lestra, she’s totally gonna be cheap,_ but she didn’t say anything about how pretty you were!”

Lestra freezes in place, and then turns slowly to stare at Jester, her showy gestures vanishing into the ether. “Did you say Beau?” she asks.

“Yeah, that was the mutual friend I was talking about, thanks, Jester,” says Fjord, with a tired huff as he runs his hand through his hair.

“Lean girl, kicks like a mule, ‘bout this high?” says Lestra, holding her hand out to a full head just below herself. “Loud and bossy with an undercut?”

“That one,” says Fjord, at about the same time Jester says, “Yes, that’s Beau!”

“Fuck me running with a spear,” says Lestra, dropping her accent and running her hand through her lustrous hair, sighing. Her voice still sounds low and sultry, but it’s less exotic now, and it sounds a little more like Beau’s accent now. “You know Beau. Of course you know Beau. Real small world we live in.” She turns to Verrin now and says, acidly, “You could’ve said.”

“Didn’t feel like saying it, ‘s’not like I fucking care off the clock,” says Verrin. “They’re paying me this time, so.”

“Your loyalty is so easily torn away from me, Ver,” says Lestra, with a theatrical sigh and a hand over her heart. “How much should I pay you to give me the undying form of it?”

“You guys are cute,” says Jester, deciding to break in and break up what she’s pretty sure is Lestra’s form of flirting with Verrin, “but like, we really kinda need that diamond dust. It’s for our friend. He got Feebleminded, and we ran out of diamond dust like, _days_ ago.” It’s not completely a lie. From the outside and at a glance, whatever happened to Molly certainly _looks_ like a Feeblemind spell. Some part of her wonders if that’s part of what went into whatever happened to him.

Verrin raises an eyebrow at her, but doesn’t comment. Lestra sighs again, and says, with a slightly hunted look in her eye when she glances around at them, “Well, what do you know, I’m so sorry, but I ran out of diamond dust a little while ago. And my supplier’s off to _war_ , so your friend might be better off with an Empire-approved cleric. They’re very nice once you give them their price.”

“No Empire clerics,” says Fjord, flatly. Jester clenches her fists, breathes through her nose. Molly is fine. Molly is _fine_ right now, Beau’s keeping an eye on him. Jester will _fix this_.

“Wow, okay, you guys have _strong_ opinions,” says Lestra, holding her hands up, eyes darting between the two of them as she backs up against the shelves. “Listen, I’d love to help you! And Beau too, I guess. I really do. But my supplies of diamond dust are very low—”

“But you got supplies,” says Fjord.

“A little bit,” says Lestra. “Maybe worth around 200 gold? But then it’s _gone_ , and I do have other customers. And, again, my supplier is _at war_.”

“ _I’m_ your fucking supplier,” says Verrin, surprisingly mildly.

“Okay, one of my major suppliers,” says Lestra, conceding the point. “I give you the dust, what about all those other clerics, druids, magic-users who need a little sprinkle of dust for their friend? Who don’t quite trust the Empire, either, and don’t want a debt that’ll be called on at the most inconvenient of times? I can’t just give you the dust—”

“We’ve got lots of money,” says Jester. “Like, _loads_.”

“Beau mentioned you were willing to help us for favors, if money was any object,” says Fjord. “Surely you have a favor that you’d like us to do? We’re here to help our friend, and if that means helping you, we’ll do it.”

Silence falls over the little shop, before Lestra sighs. “Right, well,” she says, at last, “never let it be said I don’t know a good deal when I see one.” She straightens up, and says, “I’ll let you have the dust, fine. But it’s _pure_ diamond dust, and I know Beau’s likely told you about some of my business practices.” She shrugs. “A girl does have to make a living. And I’m not lying about not having a lot of diamond dust left. The way I see it, we could possibly benefit each other.”

“What kind of benefit are we talking about, here?” says Fjord. “We’ve got some prior commitments we need to honor.”

“And I wouldn’t dream of interfering with those prior commitments, believe me,” says Lestra. “You know the festival that’s going on, right? The slaying of the hydra by the great Lady Margaret of Lynbroke? It’s quite a lovely time—”

Fjord taps his foot and says, “It’d be mighty appreciated if you got to the point any sooner than this, y’know.”

“All right, all right,” huffs Lestra, “wow, you really have hung out with Beau.” She crosses her arms and says, “Long story short, I need you to break into a highly secure warehouse that some _fucking_ asshole calling himself Rattlesnake _ripped out from under me_ , and steal my shit back from him. Can you do that? I really hope so, because you two seem like rightly capable people, and Verrin here doesn’t _want_ to get involved in this shit.”

“Can’t pay me high enough to go up against Rattlesnake, Lestra,” says Verrin with a shrug. “There’s not enough booze in the world.”

“Who’s Rattlesnake?” says Jester. A name like that, she already thinks he’s kind of an asshole. Who names themselves after a snake? That’s the most clichéd name for a possible crime lord she’s ever heard, and as a detective, she’s heard a _lot_ of them by now. “And of course we could!”

“...we’ll get back to you on that,” says Fjord. “First we gotta take this to our friends.”

\--

Beau knows something’s wrong when Molly starts to toss and turn in his sleep, an hour or two after he’s drifted off. She hasn’t left the room in that time, except to get some drinks from downstairs, and she’s sipping a mug of ale when she hears quiet little noises from Molly’s bed, sees his frown and his curling up under his coat, like it might shield him from whatever he’s dreaming about.

She grabs her staff and steps closer. Closer. Closer—

She steps on a floorboard that creaks, and Molly’s eyes snap open and fix on her.

“Oh, shit,” says Beau, faintly, just before Molly’s launched himself at her with a feral snarl. She brings her staff up to block, just in time, but the force of him colliding into her slams her into the door. _Fuck_ , and this while everybody else is out. _Fuck_ Ikithon, _fuck_ Astrid, and probably _fuck_ Eodwulf while she’s at it, too.

Molly tries to wrest her staff from her, trying to push it up into her neck so he can choke her unconscious. She snarls back at him, and jabs her knee into his stomach. The moment he doubles over, she leaps, tries to get her staff around his throat, see how _he_ likes it.

“Go to _sleep_ ,” she snaps.

Blood bursts from one of the red eyes on Molly’s skin, and suddenly Beau’s vision goes black. Something cold rolls down her cheeks. Ah, fuck.

Next thing she knows, Molly’s slipped out of her grasp, and when her vision clears it’s just a little too late: Molly’s slashing out at her with what she’s pretty sure is a sewing needle, and when it drags across the skin of her arm, she feels the bite of _cold_ settling in. Mother _fucker_.

“I said _sleep_!” she shouts, ducking under his next swing and jabbing upward with her elbow, hitting his chin. “Goddammit, Molly, of all times to flip your shit at me—”

Molly doesn’t answer, just grunts as he staggers back a couple of inches. He spits blood onto the floor, and ducks low as she swings a punch at him. The needle jabs into her side, this time, and she swears as the cold bites into the open wound. She needs to stun him, and quick, before he gets his hands on something more dangerous than a sewing needle.

She bats his next swing aside, stepping around him and cracking the end of her staff on the back of his head. He curses, whips around, and she’s already bringing it up to jab into his temple.

Molly, because Beau’s luck with this shit is just the goddamn _worst_ , does not collapse like a sack of bricks. In fact he ducks, and grabs her staff before she can pull it away, trying to yank it away from her.

“No you fucking _don’t_ ,” Beau hisses, and rips the staff from his grasp. Then she slams her fist into his face. Something cracks. Probably his nose, judging from the blood flowing from it when he stumbles back, shaking his head. Whatever, he stabbed her, they’ll have Jester fix it—

Her vision goes dark, again.

Mollymauk Tealeaf is a goddamn asshole and she’s going to _fucking strangle him_.

A moment later, his fist cracks into her cheek. She hears his footsteps, like he’s trying to get out of range, and she swings out with her staff with a snarl again. Nothing happens, her staff meets nothing but air, and her vision clears just in time for her to feel something _cold_ pass through her.

The next thing she knows, the goddamn needle jabs into her side, then stabs into the inside of her elbow. And then the motherfucker has the fucking audacity to slam his elbow hard enough into her to crack her fucking collarbone _little shitheel_ —

He blurs back into existence. She spits out a curse, and swings another punch at him again to stun him. He, again, does not go down like a sack of potatoes, but she knocks him on the head hard enough that she sees blood starting to flow from his temple. They’re both looking rough, she thinks.

Her left arm hangs at her side, about as useful to her as a sack of bricks, and her staff’s clattered to the ground. Jester is going to kill her and Molly, probably. Maybe her more.

She ducks when Molly tries to punch her again, kicking at his knee, and then swinging the side of her hand down on his neck. Molly growls at her, and she growls back before dancing around him and roundhouse-kicking him in the side. Something cracks under her heel, and Molly _shrieks_. It’s an awful sound, and it catches her off-guard.

She regrets it a second later because suddenly Molly’s picked up her staff and hit _her_ with it, hard enough to slam her into the window this time. She glances out, and drops into a defensive stance.

She sees it coming, this time—he swings her staff, she ducks. She dances around him, and then rushes at him, and the two of them fall out of the window and onto the street.

 _Ow_ , fuck, the ground fucking _hurts_ —

“Beau! Molly!” Fjord’s voice rings out, and Beau staggers to her feet as Molly’s still on the ground, scrabbling for her staff. “What the _hell_ —”

“Get Jester!” yells Beau, seeing Fjord and Jester and Verrin coming down the street, just as her own goddamn staff cracks into her ankle. “Ow!”

“Hold _on_ ,” says Jester, reaching out a hand. Above them, Jester’s spectral pink lollipop appears out of thin air, catching the attention of the already-gathering crowd.

Molly starts to get up—

—and both Fjord’s Eldritch Blast and Jester’s lollipop slam down onto him hard enough that he falls over like a sack of potatoes.


	5. the weapon you make of my heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Phildel’s “Afraid of the Dark”.

“I can’t believe you two got into a fight while we were out,” Jester grouses, as she hauls Molly back up the stairs. He’s conscious again, and steadily avoiding looking at Beau, who’s practically hanging off of Fjord. Verrin’s trailing behind them both, her eyebrows raised up so high they’ve gone into the fringes of her hair. “You’re _assholes_.”

“Didn’t you say you’d scream loudly when something went south?” says Fjord to Beau, with a sigh. Beau, in answer, leans a little more against his side, hissing as she shifts her weight and limping along. She mumbles something Jester can’t quite catch, and Fjord sighs and shifts his grip on Beau a little more.

Molly makes an apologetic face, for all the good it does, because Jester can barely see his face with his hair screening it from view. He doesn’t try to nuzzle into Jester’s side, the way he would’ve once, drunk and half-laughing. He’s not drunk, and he isn’t laughing, and he looks lost and scared and on the verge of a panic attack. Somewhere in the annoyance, Jester’s found a little pity, a little _sorrow_ , for her friend. She pets his hair, drawing a little divine energy from the Traveler’s warmth, and watches the cut on his head begin to seal up.

“What the hell’s even going on here, anyway?” says Verrin. “Your friend’s fucked up as hell, yeah, but exactly how fucked up is he?”

“That’s nothin’ you need to know about,” says Fjord, politely.

“Yeah, uh, it’s something I might need to know about, because he just _threw your buddy out a window_ ,” says Verrin. “You told Lestra he was Feebleminded. People who get Feebleminded don’t do that. They don’t even know how to tie their own fucking shoelaces, let alone fight.”

Jester shifts her grip on Molly as they get to the room Molly and Beau had been in, and hip-checks the door open. The room’s not _too_ messed up, at least, everything is mostly intact save for maybe the window frame the two of them fell through, although Jester notes the spots of blood here and there. The window frame she’ll fix, Mending’s a cantrip, and as long as she’s got the lodestones she can keep casting it till the frame’s all fixed. Mostly she’s just worried about Molly and Beau. They both look like shit.

“In his defense,” says Beau, “it was more of a joint effort.”

“A joint effort,” says Verrin.

“Yeah, I threw him out and he tried to get me under him so he wouldn’t get hurt as bad,” says Beau. Molly, at least, has the grace to look abashed when Jester narrows her eyes at him.

“Is this going to happen every time you go to sleep?” Jester says, as she deposits Molly onto the bed as gently as possible, keeping her hand on his skin to pour another dose of divine energy onto him. He sighs in relief as his wounds knit back together, and wipes absently at the blood from his nose. “Because it’s going to be really inconvenient for me for the next few days.”

“What’re you talking about?” says Beau. “Didn’t you get the diamond dust? Can’t you cast the spell right now?”

Fjord lets out a sigh. “Where’re Caleb, Yasha and Nott?” he says. “‘Cause Lestra wanted a favor out of us first before we could get the dust from her.”

“Of course she did,” Beau grumbles, as Fjord gently sets her down on the bed. Then, to Jester, she says, “You told her Molly was Feebleminded?”

“It looks kinda like it from the outside,” Jester points out, scooting over to her after giving Molly one final scratch at the base of his horn. He actually purrs a little, and whines low in his throat when she stands up. “I’ve got to look at Beau too, don’t hog me,” she huffs. “I wish we asked Clay to stick around. Being the only cleric sucks.”

“His family does kinda need him around,” Fjord points out.

Molly frowns at them, and oh, right, no one’s told him about Clay. “He’s a firbolg cleric,” she tells him. “He’s super cool. You’ll like him! We’ll take you to meet him, he lives just outside of—oh, right, the Run.” Molly had _died_ and probably resurrected and then been kidnapped just outside the Run, and sure enough she sees the wince when she mentions it. “Oh,” she says.

Molly shrugs, and gives her a cheery smile and a casually dismissive wave, like he doesn’t care. Like he’s just fine and dandy. But Jester half-suspects that when she looks away the smile will drop and he’ll curl back up again.

Sure enough, once she’s healed Beau as best she can, she turns back to Molly, and he’s curled up into a little ball. His lone charm dangles from his horn, and his scarred tail is wrapped around his legs.

“Take it Shady Creek Run wasn’t the resounding success we heard it was,” Verrin says. She’s perched now on a chair, having pulled it around so she’s resting her chin on the back rest. She’s watching Molly now like a hawk, and Jester gets the feeling she’s figuring out a couple of things about him. “Did he get hit with this thing there?”

“Something like,” Fjord says, and it’s sort of the truth and sort of not at the same time. “Again, none of your business.”

“If you’re going to be leaving a fucking blood hunter with some weird shit going on in his head in the same room as me,” says Verrin, evenly, “I think I deserve to know if that weird shit’s going to kill me.”

“You could take him, probably,” says Beau.

Molly uncurls, stands up, and leans down over Beauregard, close enough that if it were anyone else, Jester would be sure they would kiss right now. Instead, since it’s Molly and Beau, Molly just jabs at her collarbone and gets a hissed curse, then at her rib and gets another curse. Then he stands up, shakes his head, and mimes jabbing a needle into his arm and poking Beau with it.

Fjord frowns. “That’s—I have no idea what you said,” he says.

Molly rolls his eyes theatrically. Jester always did like his theatrical eye-rolling the best, gods, she’s missed him so much. He points at Beau, mimes her punching, and then pretends to hit his own cheek with his fist and pass out facedown on the bed beside Fjord. Then, still lying on the bed, he points at Verrin, who’s staring at Molly like he’s just grown two heads speaking in multiple tongues.

“I think he means she _couldn’t_ take him if Beau couldn’t take him down,” says Jester. “Hey, Beau, Molly thinks you can’t take him in a fight.”

“I kicked your ass and you know it, Tealeaf,” Beau declares.

Molly, with his face still buried in the mattress, flips her off with unerring accuracy. Beau scowls, but Jester doesn’t miss the touch of affection there, the way she relaxes, the tension bleeding out from her whole body with that one raised finger from Molly. “Fuck you too, Molly,” Beau says, and it’s been way too long since Jester heard her say that. “You’re just lying to yourself if you think I couldn’t.”

“We’re not leaving Molly alone in the same room as you,” says Fjord. “So least you don’t have to worry ‘bout being left in a room with him. There’s always gonna be at least one of the rest of us in there.”

Molly lifts his head up from the mattress, red eyes fixing on Fjord. There’s nothing feral in his expression, he’s just watching Fjord talk, so Jester’s not worried. She watches him push himself up, turn over, and lean on his elbows. He catches his eye and opens his mouth, then pauses and shuts it again, as if he’s not quite ready to risk it just yet. Or as if he _wanted_ to talk, but couldn’t.

Jester’s hand wanders back to her holy symbol and grips it tight. She’ll have to talk with the Traveler a lot tonight, about this. Maybe if she can get his help in some way, she’ll be able to fix Molly without probably going crazy in the process.

“That’s real reassuring,” Verrin drawls, in a pale imitation of Fjord’s accent. “So—Lestra’s favor. Hope you guys can handle that by yourselves, none of you dumbshits can pay me enough to go anywhere near fucking Rattlesnake.”

“Rattle-who now,” says Beau. Molly looks at Verrin and tilts his head at her, confused.

“Rattlesnake!” says Jester. “He sounds like a crime lord. Like a really shitty crime lord who couldn’t come up with a better name than that.” She huffs out an indignant breath. “Lestra really hates him. I think it’s ‘cause he stole something from her and now she wants it back, but we don’t have all the details yet. We were hoping to come back here and meet up with you two, Yasha, Caleb, and Nott, so we could talk about possibly taking it. And then you guys fell out a window.”

Molly pulls one knee up to his chest, sitting up a little more now. He’s not curling up into a small tiefling ball yet, and Jester’s rapidly figuring out that it’s something he’s mostly doing when things start to get more and more overwhelming than he can handle. He shakes his head, his pendant swinging like a pendulum.

“Your friend doesn’t seem to like this plan you guys came up with,” says Verrin.

“I can’t blame him, it’s super bad,” says Jester. “But it’s the best plan we have for now.”

Molly exhales, rubbing the heel of his palm against his eyebrow, with the scar. A lot of his newer scars don’t look like they’ve healed that much, and she wonders if this old friend of Caleb’s actually _healed_ Molly. She wouldn’t put it past her to have left some of the scars alone, if not all of them.

Jester wants—

Well, for starters, she wants Molly to be okay. She knows _Molly_ wants Molly to be okay. But he’s looking at her with worry in every line on his face and worry making his tail lash back and forth and it makes her want to retreat into her room so she can talk to the Traveler, ask him for help with something so big. God, she really does wish Clay were here, at the very least he’d let her sip some dead people tea and give her a little advice. Maybe he’d even offer to help.

She also wouldn’t mind the chance to smack someone around with her spiritual lollipop a little bit, though. And if that someone is, say, one of the people who fucked Molly up this much, then they would totally deserve to get beaten up by a lollipop.

“What do you know about this Rattlesnake fella?” says Fjord. “So we know what we’re going up against. If we take the job.”

Verrin shrugs, and says, “He’s fucking terrifying, is what he is. Running for Lawmaster now, because why the hell fucking not make it official that he’s got the Crownsguard in his pocket, but his real skill’s in the underbelly of the town—he’s built up a tiny little criminal empire all his own, and he’s a possessive guy. Doesn’t like it when other people try to come in even when they offer him fair terms.” She chuckles darkly. “Something about how Lynbroke can shine like the brightest jewel in the Empire on its own damn self, no outsiders necessary. You ask me, he’s fucking delusional, ‘specially with this war on. You need _allies_.”

“But you’re not gonna go up against him,” says Beau.

“Damn straight I won’t,” says Verrin, looking Beau dead in the eye. “I know my limits, and this is way past my threshold. I don’t bother him, he doesn’t bother me. That’s the way to survive.”

“And you’re just fine with that?” says Beau, leaning forward now, clasping her hands together on top of her knee. “You don’t think there’s something wrong, with letting this one guy’s ambition run unchecked all over town?”

“Just because you took down the Shepherds, you’re the fucking experts here now?” says Verrin, glaring Beau down with narrowed eyes. “ _Tourists_. You take Rattlesnake out, there’s going to be a power vacuum, and all the measly little gang leaders are going to start jostling for power. Hell, I’m wary of just fucking with him like Lestra wants you to.” She sighs, and pinches the bridge of her nose. “It isn’t worth it. Your blood hunter friend here, he can’t possibly be worth that much risk to your lives.”

Molly nods, slowly, but he’s looking straight at Jester. She looks back at him, and shakes her head.

“He’s worth a lot more than you think,” she says, looking at him. She sees him blink, surprised, and slowly, _very_ slowly and hesitantly, smile.

\--

“I’m sorry, Molly, you did _what_ ,” says Nott, voice pitching high.

Molly mimes punching Beau, for the third time. Caleb, also for the third time, lets out a heavy sigh and wishes he’d gotten around to putting together some kind of Sending stone. Clearly putting Beau in charge of Molly-wrangling was a bad idea, if this is what happened. Their first day in this town and already the two of them have brawled hard enough to _fall out of a window_.

“I kicked his ass, though, I just want that on the record here,” says Beau. They’re all downstairs now, with their guide entrusted with buying them all drinks. Molly had even dug around in his beloved coat for something to pay her with, even if Caleb catches him glancing over at her with narrowed eyes every so often, but he’d come up with nothing. “I won that fight. I was _winning_ that fight, then we fell out a window.”

Molly snorts out a derisive laugh, and taps the red eye on his neck, hidden by a peacock feather that’s been marred by an ugly, half-healed scar, too old now for Jester’s Cure Wounds to work on it.

Beau sticks her tongue out at him. There is something about Molly, it seems, that brings out Beau’s inner bratty teenager, and some part of Caleb hopes this is a sign that things are going to go back to something that vaguely resembles _normal_ , at least for Molly. He is a good person, he deserves normal. “That was fucking cheating and you know it,” she says.

Molly lightly taps the side of his own head a couple of times with the tips of his fingers, mimicking Beau’s staff’s motion as best as he can. Then he raises an eyebrow at her.

“I was trying to knock you out!” Beau huffs. “That’s not cheating, that’s me trying to make you go to sleep.” She folds her arms and leans back into her chair, practically sprawling all over it. “Anyway, what do you guys think of this mission?”

“We could do it,” says Yasha, matter-of-fact. “We’ve fought our way through worse. I think we could do it.”

“If someone willingly calls themselves _Rattlesnake_ , that’s a great big sign there with big letters that says _don’t piss me off or I’ll bite you and you’ll **die horribly**_ ,” says Nott, all in a rapid rush. She uncaps her flask and takes a long swig of god knows what’s inside it. “No one here wants to die horribly. Molly did that _once_ already.”

Molly shivers, and tugs his coat closer around himself. Yasha, who’s seated beside him, leans slightly against him, and he stiffens up before he relaxes, all but melting into her side. His eyes still watch them, though, and Caleb can see the faint crease of worry between his eyebrows. This is a huge risk they’re taking here, and Caleb doesn’t need magic to know that Molly’s doubtful of how _worth it_ this could be. Of how worth it _he_ is, maybe, and isn’t that a feeling that Caleb knows too well.

He swallows the bile back, and it tastes like ashes on his tongue.

“I want to do it,” says Jester. “I’d have to talk with the Traveler a little more, maybe he might know some way to help Molly, but if this is the only way, I’ll do it.”

“I’ll do it too,” says Beau. “For Molly and the fact that this guy sounds like the biggest asshole around. Even bigger than Lestra, at least she’s, like, kinda entertaining when she’s trying to bullshit you.”

“Can’t say I’m the biggest fan of getting tangled up even more here,” says Fjord. “But Molly needs this, and we gotta help him get back on his feet.” He looks at Molly and says, “What do you think? This is your head we’re talking ‘bout here.”

Molly shakes his head, looking at Jester. He taps the side of his temple with a bitten-down fingernail, points at her again, and pauses, shutting his eyes like he’s trying to think of the best way to express his thoughts. Then he sighs, and twirls the moon pendant dangling from his horn around his finger, and flashes it at them all. He shakes his head again.

“We really need a better way of talking than charades,” says Fjord. “Did any of y’all get that?”

“I did,” says Yasha. “He doesn’t want Jester to get hurt healing him.” She props her chin up on her table and says to Caleb, “It’s still on the table.”

“What’s still on the table?” says Beau.

“If an Empire cleric were to mysteriously go insane after healing someone, that would draw more attention to us than we can afford at the moment,” says Caleb.

“They don’t need to be Empire-approved,” says Beau. “They just need to be able to cast Greater Restoration. We find an asshole cleric, we make them do the thing, we’re free and clear— _ow_ , Molly, what the fuck did you kick me for?”

Molly shakes his head again, more vigorously this time. He opens his mouth, shuts it again, and makes a low unhappy grunt instead, pulling at his hair with his hands. He looks to Yasha, clambers into her space, and taps his temple, then hers. He points at Jester and makes an abortive gesture with his hand. Yasha runs her teeth over her lip, murmurs something too low for Caleb to hear, and Molly gives another shake of his head, slower this time, before resting his forehead against hers, hand drifting up to settle against the back of her neck.

She shuts her eyes and whispers something else again. Molly exhales, thumb rubbing up and down the base of her neck, and slowly smiles, soft and brittle, like he’s trying to reassure her he’ll be okay somehow. Caleb looks away, feeling suddenly like he’s intruding on something intimate, something private, treading on something pure and good.

Then Molly straightens up again, hand falling away, and scrambles back into his seat, still jittery.

Yasha sighs. “Yeah, Molly’s not in favor of any of our plans,” she says. “He’s least in favor of Jester doing it, but he’d rather not drag in anyone else outside the group either. We’ve been doing that enough, maybe.” She glances at Verrin, still talking to the bartender and gesturing wildly now.

Molly nods, and pats Yasha’s shoulder, with a grin. Then he turns to the rest of the group and huffs out a breath.

“Don’t you want everything out?” says Jester, quietly.

Molly nods, again.

“You realize,” says Beau, quietly, “that if you don’t get all that shit out of your head, it’s gonna make things worse for you. You can’t talk, and your head’s like a minefield of fucked-up bullshit. We’ve gotta fix that, first.”

Molly nods, and his hand drifts up to his throat. He mimes squeezing tight, and then loosening his grip, and breathes out a soft little noise.

“You wanna talk again,” says Fjord, as quiet as Jester, and he looks more than a little bit shaken. “Yeah, we all miss you talking too. Been way too long since we last heard your voice.”

Molly smiles a little, a small, sad ghost that’s nothing like the confident smirks Caleb had missed seeing from him. He wonders suddenly how long it’s been since Molly heard his own voice. He wonders how he last heard it: a scream, a plea, something else. He can’t imagine Molly, defiant and bright, pleading with Astrid for anything, but if she made him believe something untrue, something like the memory of her parents plotting treason—

“Well, if you want everything out,” says Jester, “then you’ll have to accept the fact that I’m going to help. _Not_ any other cleric, ‘cause they’re not as good at it as I am and they probably aren’t great at dodging evil magic traps.” She folds her arms across her chest and lifts her chin up, as if to end the discussion there. “The Traveler’ll help me out, anyway,” she says. “I’ll talk to him, and between the two of us we’ll figure something out.”

“Could help to get some insight from you, though,” says Fjord, to Caleb. “You knew these people pretty well.” He shoots a worried glance at Molly, like he’s not completely sure how much they should talk about in front of him, about Caleb’s past.

Nott reaches over and squeezes Caleb’s hand, one two three. _I’m right here._ Caleb squeezes back, and draws a little bit of strength from that, from Nott’s golden catlike eyes looking up at him with naught but care.

Caleb licks his lips, looks at Molly then Fjord, and says, “I did, _ja_ , but you must understand that whatever information I have is at least ten years out of date, and I haven’t sought more out since—since we parted.” _Since I killed my parents,_ he doesn’t say. A thought strikes him: how much has Astrid told Molly? How much has she thoughtlessly said in front of him, trusting in having broken him? How much of it was about the boy who could’ve been the leader of their troop, if he hadn’t broken? His fingers itch with heat, his heart pounds against his ribcage. “I do not know these people well, anymore,” he says. “I can only account for who they were ten years ago.”

“It’s better than nothing,” says Nott.

“Better than nothing got Molly killed, last time,” says Beau, flatly.

“We don’t know anyone else who knows these people!” says Nott, bristling.

“I know that, I was _there_ ,” says Caleb, at about the same time. “That is why I said it was out of date. We are _not_ going to try to attack any of them on that alone, that is a horrible idea that will end even worse than the last time, but I have a—a template, an idea, of what they have done to Mollymauk. We can work out a rough outline of how to fix him and then maybe go from there.”

“Let’s hear it,” says Fjord, as Jester takes out her sketchbook.

“The hell are you guys on about,” says Verrin, coming back with a tray full of their drinks. “You all look pretty damn tense,” she adds, none too gently depositing the tray with a clatter onto the table. Beer sloshes over the edges of their tankards, spilling out onto the already stained table. “Your, ah, Feebleminded blood hunter buddy here most of all.”

Molly raises an eyebrow at her, but doesn’t comment. They all know this is far more complicated and layered than Feeblemind, and even Verrin, stranger that she is, seems able to sense that much.

“Thanks for the drinks,” says Nott, “but you can go now! You’re done for the day. This is, um, private business. Not for your ears.” She flaps her hand at Verrin, and not-so-discreetly pours a little bit of alcohol from her flask into her own tankard, as if to strengthen it even more.

“Fine,” says Verrin, with a shrug. “See you assholes ‘round.” She walks back to the bartender, and Beau props her head up on her hand, her gaze wandering downwards.

Yasha takes a long sip of her beer. “I don’t like her,” she says.

Molly nods, sagely. Then he pats Yasha’s shoulder in such a consoling manner that Caleb is fairly certain that if it were anyone else, she’d be trying to inch slowly away from them. But it’s Molly, so instead she huffs out a slightly indignant breath and gently takes his hand off her shoulder.

Caleb lets out a breath. “What you must understand, first,” he says, sitting up and keeping his voice low enough that everyone leans forward, closer to him, to hear, “is that it is not just one spell. If it were one spell it would be easy enough to unravel. What Trent Ikithon did was to layer different spells in such a manner that it would be difficult to untangle them all, and supplement it with non-magical means—he would modify your memory, he would place a geas upon your mind that you could not help but bend to, he would suggest gently that you do this or that and push you towards believing it was of your own will. He could charm or dominate someone, if he wanted to, but he preferred the subtler manner of pushing them with only some, ha, memory modification.”

Molly’s mouth has fallen open, slightly, and realization seems to be sinking in fast. Horror follows in its wake, quick as a flash, and he makes a gutted noise. Puzzle pieces fall into place in Caleb’s head: too much of this sounds all too familiar to Molly.

Caleb breathes out, hands admirably steady and admirably not on fire, and says, “And it isn’t just one spell, one layer. There are many versions of the same one spell, affecting different things, different memories, different _thoughts_ , and they work in tandem with different spells.”

Jester makes a strangled noise, hand over her mouth, eyes wide with horror. “Oh, Caleb,” she whispers, so full of the sort of sorrow Caleb doesn’t think he deserves. “Oh, _Molly._ ”

Molly retreats further into his coat, pulling his legs up to his chest and curling up underneath it. He looks pale, lavender skin turning ashen as the implications register, and he makes another small noise, not unlike a horrified whimper.

“That is just fucked up as hell,” says Beau. “So if you tried to cut through all of them at once?”

“The backlash would drive you insane,” Caleb confirms. “And the person it was on—it’s hard to say, it varied from person to person. That was the trick to it, he couldn’t simply try to force different minds into the same mold, they would not budge that way. He had to convince them they wanted to fit in the same mold.” He huffs out a breath, and looks at Molly, who’s now staring down at his drink. “I don’t know if Astrid tried as much with Mollymauk. If she found him resurrected, or if she had a direct hand in his resurrection, I think she would have believed that he was malleable enough for her purposes not to bother with convincing him overly much. But, again, I don’t know for certain, I am only just extrapolating from outdated information.”

“So maybe it’s not as complicated as the one your old teacher did,” says Jester, a font of optimism.

“Maybe not, but she would’ve enlisted his help in some areas, wherever possible,” says Caleb. “Especially in laying the traps.”

“Traps, plural,” says Fjord. “There’s more than one?”

“Not just for any would-be healers,” says Caleb. “If someone were to break free, and such a thing has happened before, either Ikithon or one of his best mages would track them down, and speak a few words in a specific order, in a specific way, and suddenly—” He snaps his fingers. “And these words are different from person to person, so you never _know_. I’ve only gotten this far because of my necklace. Mollymauk doesn’t have that advantage, and judging from the fact that Astrid can manipulate his dreams and snap him back when he wakes, we can assume she has something of his that she uses as a way into his mind.”

Molly blinks, then looks up at them. He tugs slightly on his hair, longer now than it had been when he died, and not quite so clean. He mimes cutting a lock of it.

“That works too,” says Caleb. “Removing all of this from Mollymauk’s psyche—it will not be easy. Getting enough diamond dust for the Greater Restoration spell is important, certainly, but it is not the only concern we have here. We need some kind of—of _plan_ , somehow, and we need better information than what we already have, and—and—” He clutches at his head, the anxiety bubbling up in his chest and crawling up his throat like a spider.

Then someone’s hand tugs on his, and someone else’s hand lands on his shoulder, and suddenly he has a lapful of Nott and is staring right at her golden eyes. Beau has scrambled to his side, just beating Molly there, and is shooing everyone else away.

“Caleb,” says Nott, urgently, “Caleb, _Caleb_ , come on, can you hear me—”

“I can hear you, I can hear you,” says Caleb.

Nott breathes out, relieved, and rests her forehead against Caleb’s. “Okay, good,” she says. “Caleb, listen. You are the most brilliant and maybe the smartest person in this room right now. You’re certainly the most magically gifted—you just need to remember that you can’t take all the burdens on your shoulders. Let the rest of us take it too. Let _me_ take it.”

“Hey,” says Beau. “Hey, come on. You’re not the only one in this fight anymore, Caleb.” She nods to Molly now, and Caleb remembers what she said when he spoke of Ikithon to her: _so he can’t hurt anybody else._ Well, now he’s hurt Mollymauk.

“We got time to burn,” says Fjord, breaking up the discussion. “Celebration starts tomorrow night, anyway. Should probably call it a night, sleep on our choices, see if we can stick to ‘em in the morning. We’ll figure something out tomorrow.” 

Beau stands now, turns to the rest of them, respectfully keeping their distance, and says, “Who’s sleeping where tonight?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> embedded art commissioned at APCC 2018 from @mootecky on tumblr.


	6. a secret starting to rust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Matt Maeson's "Cringe".
> 
> hover over German phrases for translation!

They decide pretty quickly that Molly’s not allowed to sleep alone. Someone has to keep an eye on him, make sure he’s still there when they wake up in the morning. Caleb volunteers pretty much immediately, so Fjord ends up with Yasha (which is just a Tragedy for Beau’s hopes, Jester’s sure) and Jester gets _both_ Nott and Beau as roommates for the night. So, like, Jester’s pretty sure that means she wins the roommate contest tonight, because both Nott and Beau are amazing roommates.

They braid each other’s hair, gossip, make fun of the pulpy mystery novel Beau picked up last week, and generally try very, very hard not to think about Molly, or the look on his face as Caleb’s talk unfolded, the horror that sank into their guts as the implications hit—not just about Molly, but about Caleb, too. Caleb, who’d been a _kid_.

Eventually, Nott and Beau fall asleep, snoring worse than some of Jester’s mom’s clients. And a lot of them had snores she could hear even through the thick walls of her room.

That’s all right, though, Jester has something important to do for the night, and these two sleep like logs in real beds.

The moment she’s sure Beau and Nott are asleep, she slips out of bed and sits down on the floor, crossing her legs and holding her holy symbol tight. She’d talked to the Traveler just earlier about her day, then given him a little note that she’d be talking more in-depth about Molly specifically later. Well, later has come, and Jester is bathed in moonlight. She thinks of Molly, speaking about the Moonweaver, flashing her the moon card when she went to the circus. She wonders if the Traveler knows her. He probably does, he knows literally everyone.

She holds her holy symbol in her hand and does her best to clear her mind. She inhales, exhales, the way Beau taught her when she talked about the monks making her meditate.

Inhale, exhale.

Molly had once called out _bad doggie!_ in Infernal at a giant wolf, just to make her laugh.

Inhale, exhale.

Molly had read her fortunes on the road, every time she asked, and he came up with something interesting and cool every time. Maybe Beau was right when she said it was bullshit, but Molly had the talent for making it look like gold.

Inhale, exhale.

Molly had talked to her in Infernal, and they’d laughed about the differences in dialects between them, and he grinned so happy and bright and delighted that she half-thought he was a star given tiefling form.

Inhale, exhale.

...Molly had died trying to save her and Fjord and Yasha. She couldn’t save him. She couldn’t _save him_. She wasn’t even there when he came out of his own grave so lost and confused and empty and she couldn’t _save him_ —

“ _Oh, child, are you all right?_ ”

Jester’s eyes blink open. She sees vibrant green and red, eyes like stars, through her own blurry vision. “Traveler,” she says, “ _Traveler_ ,” before she throws her arms around him and weeps.

The Traveler’s arms wrap around her, and he strokes a soothing pattern down her back. “ _I know, I know,_ ” he says, softly, letting her cry into his cloak. “ _I know about your friend. Poor lost soul, wandered so far away from you and yours. You want to help him find his way back?_ ”

She sniffles and nods, breaking away. The Traveler wipes some of her tears from under her eyes, and his fingers are so warm, calloused with the wear and tear of traveling. “I want to help him,” she says. “But Caleb says whatever’s in Molly’s head is really complicated and also there are a ton of traps, and if I just cast a Greater Restoration on everything I could maybe go insane from the backlash. Y’know.”

“ _Yeah, we definitely can’t have that,_ ” says the Traveler, with a huff.

“I was wondering if you had some advice,” she says. “I’ve never, like, tried to undo _brainwashing_ before. I don’t wanna fuck it up, you know? But also I don’t want to go crazy.”

“ _I don’t want you to go crazy the way your scruffy friend’s healer did, either,_ ” says the Traveler. “ _Lucky for you, I know a little bit of complicated spellwork like that. It’s a little like a tapestry on the loom, half-complete—all the threads are there, and it’s come together to form a coherent picture. But a hard tug on one single string,_ ” and he reaches up and makes a pulling motion, then a little _whoof_ noise, “ _and the tapestry starts to fall apart. Starts to. It takes work and time to unravel the whole thing, and you certainly can’t do it in one go._ ”

“What if we don’t have a whole lot of time?” says Jester.

“ _Then who says you have to unravel the whole thing first?_ ” says the Traveler, with a smile. “ _Tug on as many threads as possible, then when it’s weak, tear the whole tapestry down._ ” His hand slices through the air to emphasize his point, leaves stardust and road dust in its wake. “ _There are other spells besides Greater Restoration. In fact—have I taught you how to remove curses yet? That isn’t as singularly effective, but it doesn’t need the diamonds that the restoration spell does. It’s good for tugging on threads, little by little, and weakening the spell, and you can do it more often without setting something off._ ”

Jester grins, and says, “I don’t think you have—can you show me?”

The Traveler smiles, and it’s a lot like Molly’s old smirk, confident and charming. Unlike Molly’s smile, though, there’s a little twinkle like starlight against the darkness of the clear night sky. “ _Strap in, Jester,_ ” he says, rolling up his sleeves. “ _I’ll show you a couple of tricks your friend might like._ ”

\--

The last of the sunlight from the late afternoon is starting to fade away when Caleb steps into Molly’s room and looks around. For a room that’s just seen a brawl, it’s surprisingly clean, although Caleb supposes that he’s only seeing it after the rest of the Nein have cleaned it up as best as possible. Molly trails in behind him, tail lashing anxiously around. There’s a little less scarring now than there was before, thanks to Jester’s ministrations, but there are marks that Caleb thinks will stay for the rest of Molly’s life, however long that is. Hopefully longer than it was before.

Molly doesn’t quite flop onto the bed. He sits on the edge of it, fiddling with the sleeves of his coat. Caleb leaves him alone for a little while longer, drawing out his silver thread and looping it around the room twice, just to be safe, murmuring a few arcane words as he goes. It’s habit by now, so his mind wanders off to—gods, has it really only been three days ago that Molly came back to them?

They still have the armor he’d been wearing, stashed in the back of their cart. Caleb knows that armor well enough, it’s the sort of thing that his non-magical allies would wear, back when he’d been a bright and promising pupil who sometimes tracked down and executed traitors. Sometimes the tracking part had required help, and the Cerberus Assembly was always happy to lend someone out, someone good with a lockpick or someone good at talking their way into a nest of dissidents, someone good at hiding in the shadows and darting out to kill everyone else in the way, while Caleb took in the target.

Yonnah had likely thought of it as an easy mission. A band of vagabonds calling themselves _the Mighty Nein_ , a motley little crew of shitheads—he probably thought it would be a walk in the park, building reputation aside, especially if he had a blood hunter on his side.

Certainly the fight had seemed in Yonnah’s favor, at first, thanks to how he planned his opening: he’d attacked in the early hours of the morning, waiting for Beau and Yasha to nod off on their watch. Maybe even pushing them into sleep, magically. Then he’d had Molly head in to pick off the magic-users, like Caleb and Jester, the ones who could give Yonnah the most trouble.

Only the alarm had tripped, and the next thing anyone knew Caleb had shot a bolt of fire and Nott had shot a crossbow bolt and Molly had _shrieked_ when they hit home and—

_Oh my god, Molly?_

—frozen, in place, red eyes wide with surprise.

Caleb finishes off the thread, and looks at Molly now. He’s watching Caleb now, eyes glowing faintly red in the dim light. He’s not quite as hollowed-out as he was three days ago, but he still looks a little more gaunt than he had been when he died, a little paler, like he hasn’t seen much sunlight lately. How long had Molly spent in the grave, he wonders? How long had Astrid spent on him, trying to break him?

“I’m sorry,” he says, sitting down in front of Molly on the floor. The carpet is fairly shaggy and feels terrible on his skin, but Caleb has slept on far worse. He imagines Molly has, too. “This—All of this, I should have said something, I should have _done_ something, and we would not be in this situation.”

Molly shakes his head, and tries a smile. It’s a ghost, there and gone in a flash, and he leans back on his palms and tilts his head at Caleb, opens his mouth. Shuts it again, as the geas spell seems to kick in and close his throat up. He licks his lips, then his fingers trail up to the hollow of his throat.

It takes Caleb a moment, he’s not _Yasha_ , who seems to understand Molly well enough even without language. But his hand drifts up to the heart-shaped pendant hanging from around his neck, more obvious than the other one that keeps him hidden. Of course Molly would want it back. Given time, as long as no one attacks his unconscious body, it would make sure that he wouldn’t be at risk of dying. “Do you want this back?” he asks.

Molly shakes his head, gets off the bed and down onto his knees in front of Caleb, and starts fussing about with his coat collar and the necklace. His fingers brush lightly against Caleb’s neck, and he pauses for a moment before tracing the almost-faded bruises there, too.

From the chain Molly had almost strangled him with, Caleb realises quickly. He’d almost cut Caleb’s throat in his sleep, as well, had an ugly serrated sword out that he’d then used on himself when the fight began in earnest. The sword is still in the cart, ready to be pawned off somewhere.

It’s strange, how gentle those same fingers are now. Molly leans in close, a faint crease of concern between his eyebrows, and looks up at Caleb. His thumb brushes over the necklace, tracing the shape of it.

Like this, he’s close enough to touch. Caleb is half-tempted to reach up, rest his hand on Molly’s nape, and pull him in close, kiss away the pain and fear and horrors like that could make up for letting him go too soon, letting the monsters from his past swallow such a bright star whole. But it doesn’t work that way, and even if it did, Caleb doesn’t deserve it. Deserves it even less now, perhaps.

“I’m all right,” he says, instead, and tries to smother the wanting in his chest.

Molly says nothing, _can’t_ say anything, but tucks some of Caleb’s hair back behind his ear, something soft and unreadable in his eyes. He moves back and settles now onto the floor instead of back up on the bed, seemingly satisfied with his work.

Caleb has to tell him.

He has to—

“So I’ll just summon Frumpkin, then,” he says, and Molly nods in answer. “And afterwards, I think—we should.” He stops, the words sticking in his throat, digging their claws into the soft flesh. _Coward._ “We should talk about what happened to you,” he says, and has to suck in a deep breath before he can continue on, with Molly’s eyes fixed on him: “And—And how I used to know these people. So the next time you meet them you will at least be prepared.”

Molly shakes his head, puts his fingers to his lips. Of course he’d offer an out. Molly doesn’t care about other people’s pasts, the things they might’ve done before he ever met them, and Caleb wants so badly to take that out, to still keep Molly’s good opinion of him. As though he’s worthy of it, especially now.

“Believe me, it’s better for you if you knew,” he says, instead. “I—should’ve told you, before. I should tell you now, everyone else knows, but I—I need my cat, first.” He wishes Nott were here, but Jester had whisked her off crowing about braiding her hair and having gossip parties.

Molly sighs, and nods. He stands up and does a slow circuit of the room, squinting out the window and checking the door, before he returns to bed and flops down onto it. It’s such a strange thing for Molly to do that Caleb stares at him for a moment, before he remembers the armor and the swords and Yonnah, remembers the training that Ikithon put them all through. Paranoia is a hard habit to get rid of, especially when it’s saved your life multiple times.

He sets up the ritual for Frumpkin, first, taking over the writing desk in the corner for it. In no time at all, the room is full of fragrant smoke and Caleb’s slow murmurs, his attention all on his cat. He waits one minute, then two, then three—then a very familiar rip in time and space materializes in front of him, and out steps a familiar orange cat, meowing regally and then gently ramming his head against Caleb’s hand.

Caleb laughs, a little, and caresses the top of Frumpkin’s head. Frumpkin purrs, then turns around to tilt his head curiously at Molly. Caleb more _feels_ his cat’s distant curiosity at Molly’s presence rather than hears it posed in a question, but he says it out loud anyway: “ _Ja,_ that’s Mollymauk. You remember him. He came back to us, because he is just that much of a glutton for punishment.”

Molly huffs out a tired laugh, sitting up now and leaning on his palms. _Did you just make a joke?_ a younger Molly asks in Caleb’s memory, his voice still light and carefree, and if Caleb closes his eyes he can see it as clearly as though it had happened yesterday.

But tonight Molly is in front of him, alive and as well as he can be under the circumstances. Scarred and silent and a little cracked, perhaps, but alive.

 _Go to him,_ he thinks to Frumpkin. _Knead his lap a little._

Frumpkin goes, taking the time to bat slightly at Molly’s tail, half-dangling off the bed. Molly yelps, surprised, and gives Frumpkin a less-than-heated glare as the cat hops up onto the bed and makes his way onto Molly’s lap. After a moment, Molly’s hand starts to stroke down Frumpkin’s back, as the cat kneads his paws in, getting comfortable. The worry and stress on Molly’s face fade away, like dew on a summer morning, and Caleb lets himself indulge a little in watching them.

Then he breathes in, and stands up. Another breath to steel himself, and he walks over to the bed to sit down in front of Molly. Another breath, and he tastes ashes on his tongue, takes his last good look of the peace and kindness on Molly’s face. No doubt he’ll never see it again.

“This is the story,” he begins, the words slipping out of him with as much ease as the first time he told it and the second time he told it, which is _none at all_ , “of how I murdered my mother and father.”

Molly’s hand stills, and he stares at Caleb with open shock written across his face. Caleb shuts his eyes and looks away, down to his own hands, and then everything comes spilling out of him like the first two times: his mother, his father, how proud Blumenthal had been of Caleb and Astrid and Eodwulf, his stay in the Academy, Ikithon choosing them and molding them and _breaking_ them, his parents’ treason, their graduations, how he _broke_ when he heard his parents screaming from inside the house. The asylum, the healer, the years spent alone.

“And that,” Caleb finishes, still looking down at his hands, imagining them blackening and burning, because that is better than looking up and seeing the disgust and hatred he knows will be in Molly’s eyes, and gods know he would deserve every single bit of it, “is how I knew those—those people who hurt you. Because once upon a time, _I_ was one of them, almost.” He breathes out a shuddering breath. “I am so sorry I never told you any of this. I am _so_ sorry. You deserved to know all this before you died. You deserved so much better than this, and I am so sorry—”

Molly’s arms wrap around him, and Caleb goes still for a moment. What is—

Oh.

Oh, Molly is hugging him.

Oh, Molly is _hugging him_.

“Mollymauk?” says Caleb, more than a little surprised. “ _Sag etwas_ , Mollymauk, this is—”

“If I didn’t deserve this neither did you, you were just a boy and that bastard manipulated the hell out of you the same way they did me,” says Molly, his voice scratchy and hoarse from disuse. He’s still holding on to Caleb, nails digging into Caleb’s coat, and his voice is muffled from how close he is. Caleb can barely even see his face, just tattoos and unkempt hair. “Fuck’s sake, Caleb, you don’t have to be _sorry_ to me, I don’t think I ever asked you for your past, and I never even knew there was any connection to mine. Neither of _them_ ever really talked about what you just told me around me.”

A stunned silence falls over them then, broken up only by Frumpkin’s annoyed _mrow_ , as he wriggles out from between Molly and Caleb.

Slowly, Caleb pushes Molly away, and stares at him. There’s no disgust or hatred there in Molly’s solidly red eyes, just shock and surprise at the words that have come spilling out of his mouth, and behind those emotions, sadness and something else, something fiercer. Something like the cold rage in Yasha’s mismatched eyes when she steps in to protect someone she loves.

“Did you just talk,” Caleb says, flatly, because it’s that or dwell on the fact that somehow he has hitched his wagon to the people who are _least_ capable of figuring out when someone among them is liable to get them all killed by dint of being a disgusting, selfish person. Molly talking is a momentous occasion, anyway.

Molly opens his mouth again. No sound comes out, and he frowns, pressing fingers to the hollow of his throat like he’s _sure_ there was something there.

“Talk,” says Caleb, as authoritatively as possible. There are theories forming in his head now, ideas of the boundaries of the spell. If they can push the geas this far, maybe they might get the information they sorely need from Molly.

Molly shrugs, flaps a hand in front of his mouth as if to indicate the sheer amount of nothing coming out of it.

“Mollymauk, _mir etwas sagen_ ,” Caleb says again, summoning up every scrap of leadership skill drilled into him so long ago and pouring it into his voice. “Whatever is on your mind. Now, please.”

“This is the most comfortable bed I’ve sat on in _months_ , I think,” says Molly, his words coming out in a rush, like he’s trying to squeeze them out for as long as possible, because who knows when the spell will kick back in and rob him of his voice again. “And this might just be the most I’ve spoken to anyone who _didn’t_ torture me in—fuck, a while, maybe? How long has it been since that _bastard_ stabbed me? I lost track of time. I lost—I lost a _lot_ , I was so _empty_ for so fucking long—”

There are ashes staining the inside of Caleb’s throat as Molly babbles on, grave dirt coating his tongue, and fire flickers and flares in the back of his mind. _Empty,_ hadn’t that been the only thing Molly had been able to say, the first time he’d crawled out of a grave? Some part of him is sorely, sorely tempted to say _fuck it_ and set fire to someone, anyone, especially someone who had a part to play in this. Like Lorenzo, again. Or Ikithon.

But Molly had hugged him instead of doing anything else, so he sucks in another breath to steel himself, and tugs Molly in closer for a hug, careful to avoid the horns. Molly goes momentarily stiff in his arms, then practically falls apart, shaking even as Caleb awkwardly pats his cheek, gripping on to Caleb’s coat like it’s a lifeline and he’s drowning at sea. After a minute or two the spell kicks back in, having apparently detected Molly going off on a tangent, and all Caleb can hear out of Molly is wordless sobs.

He lets out a slow breath, and lets him go as soon as Molly’s stopped shaking so much.

“I’m going to try something,” he says. “It’s more of a stopgap measure than anything, it will not take away the spell that is keeping you silent, but it’ll allow you to answer my questions without resorting to playing charades with me, at least. Would you be amenable to that?”

Molly nods. He glances towards Frumpkin and holds out a hand out, and Frumpkin comes closer to sniff at his fingers, then hop back into his lap without Caleb asking him to do anything. Sometimes Frumpkin is the worst cat in the world, and sometimes Frumpkin is the best cat in the world. This might be one of those latter times.

“ _Beantworte meine Fragen_ , Mollymauk Tealeaf,” says Caleb, sternly, watching for any change in expression or posture. Nothing seems to happen, so he continues with a sinking heart: “Who are you?”

“Mollymauk Tealeaf,” says Molly, looking up at Caleb. There’s a vindictive satisfaction in his voice and in his grin as he says his name, the one he chose. “Molly to my friends.”


	7. hold on to hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from Paramore's "26".

They spend a couple of hours like this, Caleb posing questions and sometimes having to poke Molly into saying something, and Molly squeezing in as much as he can of his words before the fucking geas kicks back in and closes his throat up again. It’s somehow the best thing that’s happened to Molly in the past few months, and isn’t that the most fucked-up bit about this situation right now.

Considering how much of it is pretty fucked up already, that’s kind of an achievement.

He _had_ tried to resist it, was the thing. The attempt had left him half-dead from the psychic backlash alone. Honestly, Molly’s pretty sure that’s the story for pretty much everything that’s happened to him in these past almost-seven months, as Caleb had so kindly told him when he asked how long it had been. His memory’s a scattered mess right now, but he’s got the important parts back, at least. Hopefully. Probably. Maybe.

Fuck, Molly’s sure _he’s_ a mess too. Whatever, he has an excuse, he spent seven months brainwashed out of his mind, of course he isn’t currently at his best. And there’s still the magic that’s dug its claws into his head to worry about, especially, _especially_ concerning Jester, and Caleb’s healer, and the risk this whole mess could carry for Jester. Caleb hadn’t said just _how_ the woman who healed him had gone stark raving bonkers, but the idea of it happening to Jester is—terrifying, to say the least. Molly’s already feeling guilty and it _hasn’t even happened yet_ , that’s how worried he is.

This shit’s left him such a mess, Moonweaver help him. He barely, if ever, feels guilty about anything.

Eventually Caleb runs out of questions, and Frumpkin gets bored enough to decide he’d much rather play with Molly’s much-abused tail than sit and receive scratchies. That’s when Caleb snaps Frumpkin back to his lap, and murmurs a couple of Zemnian words to his cat.

Molly opens his mouth to say something, but then the spell kicks back in, the headache swelling threateningly in the back of his head. He snaps his mouth shut, and sighs. His throat feels scratchy as hell right now, scraped raw from all that time spent chatting to Caleb about whatever popped into his head, and he should perhaps give it a rest. Then again, it’s been resting a lot lately.

He tugs his coat a little closer around himself to ward off the cold coming in through the window. It’s a little shabbier than it was, and he can see patches of other materials here and there like someone painstakingly repaired it a couple of times, but it still looks good and it still fits on him. He kind of pities the poor bastard who was wearing it when he tried to mug a girl in sight of Yasha, really, but then again he also kind of does not. He missed having it on him. It’s comforting. It’s the first real thing he ever really owned, then and now.

“...what you said earlier,” says Caleb, suddenly.

Molly blinks at him. The moon’s come out now, bathing in Caleb in pale moonlight, and he looks strangely vulnerable under it. Strangely young. How old had he been when he broke? Younger than Molly is now, that’s for sure. Too damn young to know what it feels like to be undone.

“You said there was a connection,” says Caleb. “What sort of connection was this? I can make my own guesses, but I want to hear it from you.”

Molly huffs out a breath, the death grip on his words loosening. “Astrid was there when _he_ died,” he says. “She was the one holding the book. I—I don’t know, I think she was disappointed. She was expecting him and she got me.” Some tiny little part of him, twisted around and fucked up as hell by all that time spent in captivity and brainwashed out of his head, is almost disappointed, too. The rest of him just spitefully doesn’t care. “She talked about him quite a lot to me, although I think that was just because I didn’t want to hear anything about it. Or him. She tried to—She fucked around with my head a lot, and there’s—there are memories I _know_ I didn’t have, before.” He breathes out, sensing the spell beginning to close in, and adds quickly, “And abilities, too.”

“The—shadow travel, I noticed,” says Caleb. “And during the fight, I saw you passing through Fjord. You couldn’t do either, before.”

Both those abilities would’ve come in very useful in that final fight, Molly’s sure. But he doesn’t say that, can’t say it, so he settles for shrugging and curling up under his coat. The fabric is a comforting weight, draped across his shoulders. The armor he’d used to wear was light, certainly, but too damn dark for Molly’s tastes. Molly now, anyway, three days back home and with friends. Molly alone, half-feral and brainwashed and scared—

He shivers, and it’s nothing to do with the cold.

Caleb scoots closer, just a little bit. Molly closes the rest of the distance to lean against his side, because scrawny as Caleb is, he’s just a tad hotter than most humans thanks to all that fire magic he throws around in battle. Molly runs hot himself, but it’s just been so _long_ , he’s missed being touched. He’s starved, emptied out, and he’s trying to fill himself back up somehow.

“Did you know you could do those?” Caleb asks. Frumpkin transfers over to Molly’s lap, shitty little claws digging into Molly’s legs.

“Not until I did them under stress,” says Molly, remembering the fucked-up idea of training the Empire had. Which Caleb apparently went through. Fuck. That honestly explains so much about everything Caleb is. “Which—I don’t want to talk about.”

“Fair,” says Caleb, with a tone that means he can absolutely guess how it happened. After all, it probably happened the same way for him, too.

They’re a regular pair, aren’t they.

Molly doesn’t say anything more, but just scratches absently behind Frumpkin’s ears. He’s starting to get why Caleb’s so hell-bent on having his cat around. Frumpkin’s pretty soft, and purrs like a little maniac in Molly’s lap when he’s not batting at Molly’s tail. It’s hard to think of terrible things when there’s a cat on his lap, purring away.

Frumpkin looks up at him, and sticks his tongue out just a little bit. It’s so adorable that Molly’s almost overwhelmed then and there with cuteness, but he stands firm and just keeps petting the cat, even giving Frumpkin a little belly rub. Although that’s probably exactly why he did it. Charmingly manipulative little kitty. Molly’s going to treat him to something later. Probably.

“Should we tell the others about this?” says Caleb, drawing Molly out of a spiral of thoughts about the eating habits of familiars. “That you can talk, but only if I ask you questions? I could—I could find some other ways around the geas, so you could speak to them as well.”

“Tomorrow,” says Molly. “We’ll surprise them with the good news, but right now, I’m absolutely knackered, I’d like to turn in for the night.” He stops, another thought bubbling up, but when he opens his mouth the spell strangles the words in his throat again.

Caleb seems to get it anyway, because he says, “ _Scheisse_ , we almost forgot about Dream.”

Molly _wishes_ he could forget about Dream. Unbidden, an image of Astrid swims up, cold blue eyes and dark hair and pale skin gradually shifting to red eyes and purple hair and lavender skin untouched by tattoos. He shudders at the memory, and shoves it away so he can focus on Frumpkin, who is kneading at his lap again. He wonders if this is the cat or Caleb, doing it. Either way, he’s so grateful to both of them it’s a little sad.

This whole situation is a little sad. His standards fell so _low_ for the high life, he’s deliriously happy already just having a bed, a room, a measure of freedom. Even the fact that no one, including Molly himself, trusts Molly to not need someone keeping an eye on him so he doesn’t flip his shit can’t dampen the delight from just knowing he can make his own choices. He could make Beau give him some skein, if he wanted to. He could get all his hair chopped off if he wanted to.

There’s something to be said for how sweet freedom feels, when you’ve almost forgotten what it feels like.

There’s still Dream, though.

He exhales, and looks up at Caleb, taps the side of his horn where flesh starts to turn into something harder. Then he mimes flipping through a book.

It takes Caleb a moment, but Molly sees the wheels moving. “I don’t have a spell for that,” he says, and Molly’s heart sinks into his stomach. “Mind Blank is there, but I cannot cast it, I have not learned it yet. _Es tut mir leid_ , Mollymauk. For so much.”

Frumpkin jumps off of Molly’s lap as Molly curls up under his coat. He doesn’t want to hurt any of his friends. He doesn’t want to hurt Caleb. He’d rather die again than hold a sword to Caleb’s throat again, or a staff to Beau’s, or do anything that could kill any of his friends. Maybe being alone wouldn’t be so bad, maybe striking out on his own and keeping to the woods where no one gets hurt if he flips his shit again on waking up wouldn’t be so bad.

For anyone but himself, anyway. It would kill him for sure.

—there’s a hand on his shoulder, warm and calloused. Molly blinks through the tears, and looks up to see Caleb, holding on to him.

“I know that look,” Caleb says, and under the moonlight he looks—like himself, really, but something about the way the moonlight makes his hair glow gets Molly to sit up and pay attention. “I know you’re thinking of leaving.” He swallows, and says, “If you truly feel you do not have a choice in the matter I will not stop you, but I—we have missed you, Mollymauk. We would miss you again if you left. You are a good person, perhaps one of the best in this group, and losing you was one of the worst things to happen in a very long time.” He breathes out, and Molly feels Caleb’s hand move from his shoulder to the back of his neck, tracing the line of the scar where the neck collar bit in and chafed till it bled. Then he rests his forehead against Molly’s. “ _Sag etwas_ , Mollymauk. Please.”

“I don’t want to go,” says Molly, the words flooding out of him before he can really stop them. He’s not sure he could, honestly. “But I’m a risk, aren’t I? And I don’t want to be. But I want to stay so badly it hurts, you don’t—well, I mean, you do know, I suppose, what it’s like being unmade bit by bit, and if I went it alone—I’ve never _been_ alone, not willingly. Those seven months, that was the first time I’ve ever been alone, and I hated it. And I want to stay, I want to _stay_ , Caleb, I would miss you all so fucking much, I _have_ missed you all.” He breathes out a shuddering breath and says, “But I don’t want to be the person who kills any one of you when he’s not himself.”

“We’re very hard to kill,” says Caleb. “You know that, right?”

“Yes,” says Molly, quietly glad that qualifies as enough of a question for the spell to not kick in, “but also, I’d like to point out that I broke Beau’s collarbone. And almost won that fight no matter what she says.”

“I am disinclined to believe you on that,” says Caleb, before he pauses.

Molly lets the silence stretch on, because there’s really not much else he can do or say until Caleb poses another question, or orders him to say something. It chafes a little, not being able to say anything unless he’s being ordered to, but it’s better than being completely mute. And he trusts Caleb, anyway. He trusts all of the Nein. Probably more than he currently trusts his own head, at the moment, what with the magic traps sitting in it.

Caleb’s fingers rub idly against the back of his neck. He shuts his eyes against the feeling and sighs. It feels nice and novel, having someone holding him like this, like he’s a person again.

“This is going to sound like a very stupid idea,” says Caleb. “But. Um. Can I sleep next to you?”

Molly’s brain almost immediately screeches to a stop. “Uh, what,” he manages to say before the spell shuts him up again.

Great. Just great. The first time he ever gets to sleep next to Caleb, alone, and it’s after months of brainwashing and torture and fuck knows what else happened, certainly not Molly. He can’t believe how badly his luck is going, lately. He would’ve liked it better if it was after a round of incredibly satisfying sex, but nope, here they fucking are, instead.

“Can I sleep next to you?” Caleb asks again.

In for a copper, in for gold. “Certainly,” says Molly, trying his best not to blush horribly. He hopes it’s too dim for Caleb to see it. He tries out a hundred different lines in his head, a hundred different ways to play this off before the spell strangles his voice again, and discards them all in a flash. “I can’t really promise I’ll be the best bedmate, though,” he says, instead, and is deeply relieved when he doesn’t trip over his words and blurt something weird out that he can’t take back. “I’m afraid I’m out of practice.”

“That is fine, I am also a terrible bedmate,” says Caleb. “I’ve been told my elbows are a weapon by themselves.”

That’s what happens when you’re as thin as a stick, but Molly generously decides not to comment, and not just because the spell’s kicking in again. Instead he just takes his coat off and drapes it over a chair, careful and reverent with it. Caleb takes his own coat off and just balls it up and leaves it by the foot of the bed, and Frumpkin leaps down from the bed to curl up on it, a feline king upon his shabby throne.

He’s probably the only one here who’s got his shit even remotely together. Molly takes the time to pet his fuzzy little head, because someone who’s got his shit together deserves some acknowledgment of the good work he’s doing, looking after the rest of them who don’t. Frumpkin purrs, satisfied with Molly’s tribute, and stretches out on Caleb’s coat, tail lashing around.

“Can I try something?” Caleb asks, and Molly hums in assent as he lies down on his back, looks up at the ceiling.

“Sure,” he says.

Caleb’s hand rests, very hesitantly and very gently, in his hand. Molly’s brain chooses that exact moment to halt every single thought process and just zero in on the fact that Caleb is very warm, indeed. “I am—not sure, if this will work,” he says. “But I thought, well, if the dodecahedron, a very powerful magical artifact that I’m certain both Xhorhas and the Empire are looking for with all the magical resources they have at hand, cannot be found while it is with us, in that lead box, then perhaps I could. I could be the lead box. For the night. I have the necklace. What do you think?”

“I was actually in a box, sometimes, if I ever fucked it up or talked back,” says Molly, distantly, staring up at the ceiling and concentrating on the fact that it’s wood, on the distant sounds of early celebration outside the window. “A cell, really, so it wasn’t made out of lead, just stone. Not much of a bed, stone everything, couldn’t hear anything outside. Very dark. Jester would’ve hated it. I did.”

Caleb makes a small, horrified noise.

And then it’s Molly’s turn to be horrified when he says, “Oh, _verdammt_ , Mollymauk, you too?”

Molly turns to look at Caleb now. “Oh, gods, Caleb,” he says, “you were just a _kid_ —yes, me too. You realize that is utterly fucked up, right?”

“You and Beau both,” says Caleb. “She said much the same thing when I told her.”

The spell closes in before Molly can say anything about that, but, yeesh, he and Beau agree on something. He’s glad that it’s this much, though.

“I’m—all right, I will not say I am a lead box anymore because it is _not good_ for you,” says Caleb, a little hurriedly, and Molly can’t imagine he looks _great_ right now if he’s making Caleb backtrack a little. He squeezes Caleb’s hand, to reassure him that it’s not his fault, it’s just Molly being a little bit of a mess. “ _Danke_. Um. Again, I do not know if this will work, but my necklace keeps me from being found by magic. It keeps anything else on me from being found by magic, too. I think if I were next to you, if I were touching you, Astrid would not be able to find you even if she had anything of yours. But I don’t know for certain.”

None of them know anything for certain, about any of this. It’s all uncharted territory. Molly would honestly be all for it, if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s _him_ at the center of it all and not some other poor schmuck. As things stand, though, all exploring is doing to him is raise so many horrifying questions and possibilities that his head spins, trying to keep track.

“What do you think?” says Caleb.

“Why not? Let’s try it,” says Molly, flashing a smile. “If it works, I’ll finally get some actual sleep. If it doesn’t work, you have my full permission to hit me with everything you’ve got. I’m fire-resistant, anyway, I can take it.”

“If it doesn’t work I will scream like a terrified child for Beau, I do not like my chances up against you,” says Caleb.

Molly chuckles, and if there’s a hysterical edge to it, Caleb doesn’t seem to comment. The spell closes in anyway soon enough, and he sighs, exhausted. It’s been a weird night, and he hadn’t been lying about wanting some actual sleep for once, uninterrupted by magical nightmares from Astrid or Eodwulf or, god forbid, fucking Ikithon. If he’s going to have nightmares, he’d rather they came from inside his own head.

He curls up onto his side. Caleb follows, holding onto him, and his arm settles over Molly’s torso, following the line of Molly’s arm. He’s a warm, steady weight against Molly’s back, and his breath tickles a little bit on Molly’s neck.

Fuck, Molly did not think this through, probably. His heart thumps hard against his chest like a rabbit in a cage, loud enough that he’s fairly certain Caleb heard it, and so did everyone else in different rooms. But Caleb doesn’t say anything, just settles in against Molly a little more comfortably. Although his elbows do poke a little bit.

“Go to sleep, Mr. Mollymauk,” says Caleb. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Molly shuts his eyes, and does his best to sleep.

\--

“So,” says Yasha, having won the contest of Boulder Parchment Shears for the bed, “um.”

“Yeah, Yasha?” says Fjord, rolling out his bedroll on the floor. As roommates go, Yasha’s by far the best one he’s had. Molly once kicked him out of the room to have a threesome, and Clay also once kicked him out of the room to have a tea party with Jester and Cali. So far all Yasha’s done is claim the bed at all costs, and in the grand scheme of things, that’s not really, like, a huge thing.

Although her sword is lying next to her in bed, which is kinda weird but whatever. Everybody’s got weird shit.

...she might want to talk about Molly. Fjord steels himself for that conversation, because it’s _Molly_ , and he’s missed the guy a lot. He hadn’t even managed to say goodbye to him, he’s stupidly happy just to have Molly back around, even if now he’s brought with him a whole new load of baggage.

“How do you, um,” she says, “talk to girls? That you like? Very much?”

Fjord really wishes they’d talked about Molly instead, because in all honesty, it’s not like he knows how either, sometimes. “This about Beau?” he says, not sure how to proceed from here. How the fuck did he end up the adult here? He’s not _supposed_ to be.

“Um,” says Yasha, blushing. “I. Uh. Yes.”

“If you bought Beau all her drinks I think she’ll love you forever,” says Fjord, a little more relieved. He knows Beau. He knows how to talk to Beau. “Hell, I think she’s already pretty much in love with you. Carry her ‘round a little bit and she’ll be planning a wedding in two months, guaranteed.”

“I don’t—know about weddings, I just want to talk to her,” says Yasha. “Give her flowers. And drinks.” She blushes even more, and grabs her book of manners, looks down at the flowers pressed between the pages. “She’s very pretty,” she mumbles. “And I like her very much. And I—”

She sighs.

“I honestly just wish I could ask Molly about this,” she says, “it wouldn’t be helpful but I wish I could ask,” and there they are. Molly’s name lands hard even now, even with him just a couple of rooms away. They can’t exactly ask him, after all, not with some spell on him keeping him quiet. Fjord swallows the old grief that bubbles within his throat, the anger that rises in his chest alongside it. Of all the people he knows, Molly deserves chains and a magical gag the least. He’s sunlight and rainbows and colors, a prime bullshitter.

“Yeah, me too,” says Fjord. “There’s no bullshit like what he could spin from his mouth.” He sighs, and punches the pillow up a little, just to make it seem a little fluffier.

“I should’ve been there, maybe things—maybe things would be better,” says Yasha, and Fjord doesn’t need to ask to know what she’s talking about. It’s the same thing he sometimes thinks, himself—he should’ve been there, too. He should’ve fought harder against the spell. He should’ve helped in that fight somehow, if he had, Molly wouldn’t even _be_ in this mess. He should’ve _been there_ , and maybe that would’ve made a difference.

Maybe not.

Hell if Fjord knows.

“None of that’s your fault, Yasha,” he says, instead, because Molly might’ve been Fjord’s roommate, but Yasha’s his best friend. “None of that,” he adds, firmly, so she can believe it. At least one of them has to.

Yasha huffs out a breath, and says, tiredly, “Don’t say that if you don’t believe it either.”

“Somebody’s gotta say it, and Beau ain’t here,” says Fjord, thinking of Beau smacking him and snapping _don’t you fucking blame yourself, that was out of your control_. “There’s not much else to say about it, anyway. None of us can change what happened, though hell, I sure wish I could, somehow.” He wishes there’d been something left of the Shepherds too, something to stab or hit or tear to shreds in the wake of everything they did to Jester and Yasha and to those kids and to him. And, shit, he won’t lie to himself—a little part of him wants very badly to track down Astrid, and Ikithon.

But he’s the de facto leader, and Molly and Caleb are two of his own people, and anger’s not going to help Molly recover or Caleb forget. So he shoves it down behind a door marked For Later, and focuses now on Yasha, her mismatched eyes on the book, the flowers.

She says, “Molly got me this book.”

That’s a shock. “He never struck me as a book guy,” he says.

“He’s not,” she says, with a small laugh. “He thought it would be funny. And it is a pretty good book, for pressing flowers into.” She holds up the book, and Fjord chortles when he sees the title: _Manners for the Up-and-Coming Young Noblewoman_. Yasha is the furthest thing Fjord has ever seen from a noblewoman, and try as he might, he can’t imagine her in the kind of dress the ladies in stories would wear. No room for her sword, he thinks. He can imagine her in armor, though, like a knight.

“What kinda flowers have you been picking up?” he asks, scooting closer on the floor so he can see.

“Pretty ones,” says Yasha. “Colorful ones. Whatever catches my attention. I’m not very picky.” She opens up the book to let him see the flowers, the peonies and the daisies mingling with sunflowers and lilies. As the pages go on, the colors start to shift, and Fjord sees more lavender, more red, more blue and green, even a few hues of pink. But the purples and reds, those are the ones that dominate the later pages, the snapdragons and the forget-me-nots.

Molly’s colors, he realizes.

And on the final page, a blue silk flower from Hupperdook. Fjord chuckles to himself, what little he remembers of the night they won the drinking contest bubbling up to the surface of his memory. That had been a good night.

“I was going to lay it on his grave,” she says. “As soon as I filled it up. I thought he might like it.” She shuts the book now, and sets it reverently aside.

“I think he’ll like it now,” says Fjord. “Seems like he hasn’t seen a lot of flowers in a while, and who knows—might be Beau might even like a couple.” She’d definitely liked the silk flowers.

Yasha blushes again, and says, “You think so?”

“I know so,” says Fjord. Then he turns back to his bedroll, and shuts his eyes. “See you in the mornin’, Yasha,” he says, glancing out the window and seeing nothing but clear skies.

“Good night, Fjord,” she says.


	8. spirits in my head and they won't go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from the Strumbellas' "Spirits".

Caleb wakes to sunlight warming his face, drool soaking his pillow, and a warm body in his arms, snoring peacefully. A warm body with _horns_ , that’s curled into him now, long hair tickling into Caleb’s throat.

For a moment he freezes in place, unable to place just what the hell is going on here. Then he remembers: he’d offered to sleep next to Molly, in the spirit of experimenting with just how far either of them could stretch the necklace’s capabilities. The look on Molly’s face bathed in pale moonlight, full of gratitude for even the offer made, flashes again in Caleb’s memory, every detail perfect down to how his lips parted just slightly. His heart beats fast against his chest, at the memory of both that and Molly’s hand in his.

And the fact that Molly is currently in his arms, asleep and peaceful, that too. Caleb makes a small noise, and Frumpkin leaps up onto the bed as if to inspect just what is going on here. Then, clearly satisfied, Frumpkin jumps off the bed once more, in order to curl up on the carpet and enjoy the patches of sunlight streaming in through the window, because Frumpkin is an evil little traitor cat willing to abandon his wizard if there is a patch of sunlight calling his attention more.

Gods. He’s certain Molly had his back to him when they both went to sleep. Somehow in the night Molly’s turned over and now he’s snoring into Caleb’s chest, drooling into his arm, and Caleb just lies there and contemplates possibly spontaneously bursting into flames or something. Molly’s fire-resistant, he can take it. Although, wait, Caleb’s legs are tangled up with his. Fire-resistant does not mean fireproof. Caleb will have to table the spontaneous human combustion for a time when Molly is not in his arms. Oh, gods, this was such a bad idea. Why did Caleb come up with this idea? This is _bad_ , he should never have made the offer, he’s never going to know peace again—

And then someone knocks very loudly on the door and says, singsong, “Ey-oh- _ey_ , Ca _leb_! Good morning! I hope you aren’t _dead_ in there, because I’ve got super good news for you and Molly!”

Molly blinks bleary red eyes awake, shifting in Caleb’s arms. Caleb braces himself for a feral snarl, the feeling of fingers digging into his throat, but instead all he sees is just the bleary not-actually-hatred of those awoken far before they want to be woken.

“ _Caaaaaaleb!_ You’re not _naked_ in there, are you?”

“Please don’t come in, Jester,” says Caleb, because if Jester comes in then he’s never going to hear the end of this, ever, and also he will probably die by angry barbarian woman, or angry monk woman. Molly’s stretching in his arms now, like a rather large purple cat, and slowly coming into wakefulness. He pushes himself up, and okay, that’s Caleb’s limbs free now, he scoots back so Molly can stretch better.

“If you don’t let me in I’ll get Nott and we’ll pick the lock!” Jester yells from the other side of the door, as Molly gets off the bed.

“I will throw you both out, I mean it!” he calls back to the door. “We are _fine_ , Mollymauk and I are all right!” He looks back at Molly, who’s poking his head out the window and breathing in the morning air. As he watches, Molly spins back around, and there’s a sense of delight in his movements, like a weight has been lifted off of him and he hadn’t even realized it was there. He grins at Caleb, wide and genuinely happy, and Caleb’s heart might actually stop in his chest at the sight of it.

“On the count of three I will get Nott and we’re gonna break the lock on this door!” Jester shouts.

Molly ambles on over to the door himself, opens it up, and lets Jester in, practically dancing as he does. Caleb sits up in bed and hopes to god Jester does not say what he thinks she’s going to say, because he hadn’t rolled out his bedroll and Molly’s clearly having a very good morning—

“Did you guys _sleep together_?” says Jester with a grin. Behind her, Molly dissolves into helpless giggles, so Caleb’s not going to expect help from him. Asshole.

“ _Nein!_ ” shrieks Caleb. “No, _nein_ , or— _ja_ , but not in that sense—”

“You _slept together_ ,” says Jester.

“ _Sag etwas,_ Mollymauk, please, I don’t know how to explain this,” says Caleb, despairing.

“Sag wha—”

“We didn’t have sex, Jester,” says Molly, his voice less scratchy than it had been the night before, when they first tried pushing the geas as far as it could go. He sounds almost like he used to, now, cheery and light. “He offered to shield me from Astrid’s Dream spell, we figured his necklace could _probably_ do the job, but neither of us wanted him to take it off. So technically we did sleep together, we were on the same bed, but I assure you, it was very unsexy.”

Caleb’s heart would like to disagree, but Caleb has made it a habit not to listen to what his heart says.

Jester freezes in place, then slowly turns to Molly. Her eyes are beginning to fill with tears, and her mouth is threatening to burst into a radiant smile. “Oh,” she says, “oh, _oh_ , Molly, I missed you _so much_ ,” and she charges forward and almost bowls Molly over with a hug. Molly makes an _oof_ noise as he staggers back from the force, stiffening up a little, but he hugs back just as readily. “When did you start talking? How did you start talking? You have to tell me!”

Molly huffs out a breath, and pushes Jester off just a little. He places a hand over the hollow of his throat, and shakes his head. Jester turns to Caleb now, clearly about to ask the question.

“It’s not permanent,” says Caleb, “it only—we only figured it out last night. The spell has loopholes, otherwise he could not make reports: if someone gives him a command to speak, he speaks, but only for a limited time. And I gave him a command that allows him to answer my questions, but I don’t know how long that has lasted.” He looks to Molly and says, “Uh, Mollymauk, what’s—where are we right now?”

“The most luxurious room I’ve been in over the past seven months, that’s where we are,” says Molly. “My god, it’s worked!”

“Can you read me a fortune?” Jester says, quickly, but Molly shakes his head. “Um. _S-Sag etwas_ , is that how you say it, Caleb?” Her accent is atrocious, and Caleb winces at the sound of her butchering the words.

Molly opens his mouth, then shuts it again and shakes his head. His smile fades a little, and he crosses his arms over his chest, hunching in on himself a little bit.

“ _Sag etwas_ , Mollymauk,” says Caleb, guilt worming into his heart as he says the words. They need to get this chain off of Molly as soon as possible, the one tying him to Caleb in perhaps the worst possible way.

“It’s like he said, it’s not permanent,” Molly says, with a brittle smile and a shrug. “At best it’s a stopgap measure, and a very shitty one at that. Far as we know, it only really lets me talk when someone orders me in Zemnian, and it closes in pretty quickly, even if the command isn’t very specific. I don’t know if it’ll work with anyone else but Caleb, honestly, I have my doubts, but I’m willing to try.” He licks at his lips, and says in a voice so full of yearning that Caleb’s heart breaks, “It couldn’t hurt.”

“I could help,” says Jester, after a moment passes. “That was the good news I was coming here with, actually! I talked to the Traveler yesterday night, and he showed me how to cast Remove Curse. It’s not, like, super powerful, so it can’t totally wreck the thing in Molly’s head like I really want to, but it can definitely make some cracks happen and I’m not gonna go nuts, either. And I can do it a little more often than I can do Greater Restoration, I don’t need the diamond dust for Remove Curse.” She punctuates this declaration by wiggling her fingers in front of Molly, divine magic making her fingertips sparkle and glow.

Molly rocks back onto his heels, tail swinging back and forth, curling here and there. Then he nods, and tucks his hair back behind his ears as if to allow Jester better access.

“I’ll head outside, then,” says Caleb, getting to his feet and picking up his coat. Magical fur is much easier to get out of his clothes, at least. “How long will this take, Jester?”

“Not too long, maybe like a couple of minutes at most, hopefully, but just in case, don’t come in and don’t let anybody else come in for like fifteen minutes at least, this is super important,” says Jester, taking Molly’s hand. She tugs him over to the bit of carpet just beside Frumpkin, sunning himself, and lets go of him to pet Frumpkin on the head. “Hi, Frumpykins! Oh, it’s so good to see you, you’re super-cute. Molly, you remember Frumpkin. Right?”

Molly nods, a small, hesitant smile touching his mouth again. The light catches on the silver moon charm dangling from his horn, and Caleb’s breath catches in his throat.

Frumpkin meows, headbutting her palm, and then pads over to Molly, curling around his legs and purring, intent on batting at his tail. Caleb thinks, _sit in Mollymauk’s lap when he sits down, I have a feeling he’s going to need the contact._

“If anything goes wrong in those fifteen minutes,” he says to Jester, “how will we know?”

“I’ll scream _Uno_ ,” says Jester, making a shooing gesture. “Go, go. I think they’re frying _bacon_ downstairs, you should totally get some before Beau steals them all and sticks them in her pockets.”

Then he shuts the door, and leans against it as Yasha, yawning, comes out of her and Fjord’s shared room. “ _Hallo_ , Yasha,” Caleb says, giving her a small wave as she blinks blearily at him. “Mollymauk is inside with Jester right now. They’re all right, before you ask.”

“Oh,” says Yasha. “Can I come in?”

“Mm, no, I don’t think so,” says Caleb. “She said it was, ah, _super important_.”

Yasha stares at him, then huffs out a breath. “You sounded just like her for a moment there,” she says, and, huh, he supposes she’s right. “Is Molly okay? He didn’t—”

“He didn’t try to kill me,” says Caleb. “That is—actually that is something of a long story, but I was able to figure out some way of keeping him from someone magically intruding into his head while he sleeps, for the time being.” He puts an emphasis on the last phrase, because it’s only temporary, only until they can figure out a more permanent way to keep Astrid from manipulating Molly’s dreams to turn him into a danger to them and to himself.

“Mornin’, Caleb,” Fjord mumbles, shuffling out of his room like he’s one of the undead. He could easily be mistaken for one, with how he moves so slowly, his golden eyes barely peeking out from between his lids. “Mornin’, Yasha. What time’s it?”

“Half past eight,” says Caleb.

“Oh, good, hope they’re fryin’ bacon downstairs,” Fjord says, shuffling past them. A minute later, Beau rushes past, somehow completely awake and human, and shouts something about pocket bacon, leaving dust and debris and a very confused and sleepy Fjord in her wake.

Nott trails behind them, rubbing at her eyes. “Has anyone seen Jester?” she asks. “She wasn’t there when we got up this morning. She’s not downstairs, is she?”

“She’s with Molly,” says Yasha. “Um, they were doing something important?”

“They’re experimenting,” says Caleb. “They’re both all right, Mollymauk didn’t try to kill me when he woke up.”

Nott stares at him, then at Yasha. “Is this the kind of experimenting,” she says, delicately, “that I should definitely not go inside for?”

Caleb shrugs. “Definitely don’t,” he says, “Jester was very firm on that.” And if there’s one thing Caleb’s learned in this group, it’s that whatever Jester wants, for all their sakes they better make sure that she _gets it_. “Why don’t you two go downstairs? I’ll stay up here.”

“Oh, no!” says Nott. “I’m staying here with you, Caleb.” But she does slip her flask out of her pocket and send a Look at the door. Then she knocks back a swig of alcohol.

“Yeah, me too,” says Yasha. “No offense, but you’re. Not the sturdiest person.”

“None taken, that is why I stay back twenty feet from fights,” says Caleb. “Give them—hm, twelve minutes.”

\--

“Okay,” says Jester, “before we start, Molly, is there anything you don’t want me to do? Because this is my first time with this spell, and my first time trying to break brainwashing stuff, and I don’t wanna do something that’ll hurt you more than it helps.”

Her hand is warm in Molly’s, glowing with divine magic. He’d never really thought about that, actually. He’d liked touching, he’s always been a tactile person, but now it’s as if he can’t get enough of it, as if he can’t get warm enough without someone else. But at the same time there’s certain touches, now, that set off the little tiny part of Molly that’s curled up inside a small stone cell into a panicked fit. That part of him’s a fucking asshole, honestly.

He huffs out a breath, casts his scattered memory back as far as it can go. He points at the base of his horns and at his tail, now curled around a leg, and very emphatically shakes his head. Frumpkin, thankfully, does not bat at his tail, having settled in Molly’s lap. Good cat.

“Don’t touch your horns, or your tail, okay,” says Jester. “You let me touch your tail to heal it, though.”

 _You asked, and you know it’s sensitive, and I trust you, Jester._ But the words die in his throat, strangled by the geas. He wishes Caleb were here, to tell him to talk. He wishes he could talk without somebody ordering him to. There’s a lot of things he wishes, but right now he looks down at Frumpkin and buries a hand in his fur, scratching idly. Frumpkin meows and snuggles closer, and Molly breathes in, then out. No wonder Caleb loves his cat.

Jester scoots forward, and touches his cheek. He looks up and meets her eyes, and she leans forward to press a soft kiss to the top of his head. Like a benediction, he thinks. Like a blessing— _the Traveler is with you, child, go with ease._ Funny, he half-thinks he can see stardust in her smile, green grass in her eyes, for just a moment before he blinks.

Her hand glows, warm on his cheek. “I’m gonna try it now,” she tells him, and he shuts his eyes to let her work. Inhale, exhale.

What had Caleb said about that thing in his head? Geas, Modify Memory, Suggestion, Charm Person, Dominate Person—lots of fun spells, the ones that could fuck someone up like nothing else. And under them all a trap, just waiting for Jester to waltz into it.

For her sake, he hopes she doesn’t.

\--

It’s weird.

One moment Jester’s in Molly’s room, touching his cheek, the next she’s standing in the middle of a snow-covered road. She blinks, surprised, and turns around, holding her symbol close to her chest and very discreetly putting a hand on her handaxe. Then her eye catches on—strings. Lots of them, strings glowing red and loosely tied together into a rope. She follows the rope first, sees it growing from something loose into something more cohesive, but walks for way too long just trying to find the end of it, and she has to sigh and go back the other way.

The strings pulse darkly when Jester plucks them. She shivers, and tugs her cloak closer around herself. Her symbol glows in her hand, and she takes a deep breath and marches forward, to where the strings separate into little strands, strings pulsing with a sick red glow that make her feel ill, just looking at them.

She turns and gasps.

There’s an empty grave, an empty stick. There’s Molly covered in grave dirt, and all the strings are tied around him so tightly that he’s bleeding from so many. He’s curled up into a dirty little tiefling ball, and Jester rushes forward and kneels down in front of him.

“Molly!” she says. “Molly, Molly, _Molly_ , oh no, I’m so sorry—”

Molly makes a horrible whining noise, flinching away from her. One of the strings tugs and he gasps, pained. Even here he doesn’t say a word, and it hurts Jester to see him like this, so frightened and lost. He’s her friend. He doesn’t deserve this.

These strings are hurting him. She takes hold of one, the one that just tugged when he flinched. She grabs it—

_—and she stands in another memory, but this is different, this is someone else’s, there is a lavender tiefling in front of her in dark armor with bleached white hair and no tattoos and a dagger-sharp smile that forgot what it was like to be warm. He’s talking to a woman, with icy blue eyes and short dark hair, hard and sharp like ice, and they’re standing under the lamplight somewhere in Shady Creek Run. “You’re the Rexxentrum spellslinger?” he says, and he sounds a lot like Cree, the Gentleman’s tabaxi friend. “You don’t look like much.”_

_“You’re Lucien?” says the caster, who sounds very much like Caleb, and Jester makes a horrified noise. This is Molly’s old life, the one he never ever ever wanted to remember. She steps forward to shout, but she passes through Lucien like so much old smoke. “You don’t look like much.”_

_Lucien cocks his head to the side. It’s easy to see the things Molly got from him, like the casual confidence in his movements, but Molly doesn’t smile so coldly. “The Nonagon,” he corrects. “I shed my old name, my old life.”_

_The woman’s lips purse. “Nonagon,” she says, but there’s a real disdain to her voice when she says the title. It’s as if she thinks he’s beneath her, somehow. “What do you want from the Empire? What do you have to offer our king?”_

_“A way to wipe out the Xhorhasian threat,” says Lucien, and there’s a fire in his eyes that Jester doesn’t like. “I keep an ear to the ground, you know. I know you have had difficulties, dealing with the cricks. I think you’re dealing with half-measures, and I say that I have come to offer your fair king a trade: I can tell him the order’s secrets, I can show him how to bring the whole thing to heel and point it towards Xhorhas. In return, I just want one thing.”_

_“And what’s that?” says the woman._

_“A book,” says Lucien. “The book, as it were. The grimoire with the ritual that could enable me to fulfill my destiny.”_

_The woman goes still. Her eyes flick over Lucien, passing over Jester as though she’s not even there. “How did you hear of that?” she snarls._

_Lucien leans against the wall, examining his fingernails. “I talked to your friend,” he says. “After a few minutes with me, he was happy to talk to me about anything and everything.”_

_“You charmed him,” says the woman, flatly._

_“Your own fault, hiring someone so weak to spy on me and my work,” says Lucien. “I’m offering you and your Empire a gift, spellslinger: the Order of blood hunters that you want under your control, all the access to its knowledge and its magics you could ever hope for. I know you want it, despite how unnatural you believe it is. I’ve worked with your mages before. I’ve seen how they look at me.” He smirks. “In return for that great gift, what I ask for is so paltry and small.”_

_“You’re the leader of a gang,” snaps the woman, stepping forward into the light. “You are nothing, understand? I don’t make deals with criminals who reach too far for power.”_

_There’s a burst of blood from the back of Lucien’s neck, and suddenly the woman reels back with a snarl as her eyes turn black, and blood starts to roll down her cheeks. “You little—”_

_“There’s really no need for insults, spellslinger,” says Lucien, who looks up now with this awful satisfaction in his eyes. Jester doesn’t like him. Not one bit. She’s glad he died and Molly came forth instead, kind and gentle and bright like a star. This Lucien guy is all sharp edges and darkness and roiling anger at the world masked by a smile. “I just want to talk. We can talk, right?” He steps forward, and says, “What’s your name?”_

_The woman wipes the blood off her cheeks as her vision clears, and glares down Lucien with undisguised hatred. “Astrid,” she spits, and recognition slams into Jester’s chest then—Caleb’s Astrid, she realizes, the good dancer, the one who found Molly and broke him and hurt him so much, and her handaxe quivers in her hand. “You want to talk? Fine. We’ll talk. I know when someone has the upper hand over me. But I won’t forget this.”_

_Lucien laughs, arrogant, low. “Glad to see even a Northern spellcaster like you knows how to fold,” he says. “Come, now. I have some wine, and we can discuss how we can help each other.” He turns, and does not see Jester there, but passes right through her._

_But Astrid does._

_“Who the hell are you?” she snarls. “You shouldn’t be here!”_

_Jester spins the handaxe in her hand, and in a flash, it turns into a giant lollipop, radiant against the darkness of Shady Creek Run. Out of the corner of her eye she sees a flash of green, a stardust smile, and a whisper:_ go get her, Jester. _“I’m Molly’s friend,” she says, “and I’m gonna kick your ass, you stupid brainwashy fucker!”_

_“Oh,” says Astrid, “you,” and she flings out a splash of acid._

_Jester ducks, hissing as some of the acid lands on her cheek, and swings with her lollipop. Astrid steps around with a curse, a wicked dagger appearing in her hand, and flings that at her too, then another._

_Jester bats one of the daggers away with her lollipop, but the next one hits her in the shoulder as she’s rearing back for another swing. She swears and digs it out, dripping blood onto the dirt of the Run. Then she ducks the punch that Astrid swings at her, and jabs up, the way Beau taught her, with the stem of her lollipop into Astrid’s ribs._

_All the air in Astrid’s lungs leave her body with a_ whoof _, and Jester presses her attack, whipping around to slam her lollipop into Astrid’s torso. Astrid slams back into a wall that dissolves into snow and blood, and staggers to her feet, and another wicked dagger appears in her hand. “I didn’t realize he’d picked up more stooges,” she says, and Jester realizes: Molly had said nothing about them, to this woman. She doesn’t know about_ Caleb _, or about Yasha, or anything else. “_ Dummkopf _woman, do you know what Lucien’s done? Don’t you know what justice looks like? He deserves this!”_

 _Jester bares her teeth at her, and says, “He’s our friend, and by the way, his name’s Molly!” Then she swings the lollipop up, the dagger glancing off of her armor, and brings it down on Astrid’s head with a scream, and_ —

—the memory dissolves. Shady Creek Run crumbles like dust around her, and the snow begins to fall again. She turns around, blinks up at the sky, rapidly turning lighter. Her lollipop is gone now, returned to its form as a handaxe, dripping blood, and she turns to see Molly blinking up at her. Three of the strings attached to him, intertwined around each other and drawn so tight and taut that they’ve drawn blood, wink out of existence.

“Jester?” says Molly, and Jester could weep from the sound of his voice, small and thready and broken and cautiously _hopeful_ , so, so hopeful. Instead she falls to her knees and cups his face, and hugs him.

“ _Molly_ ,” she says. “Oh, Molly, I’m so sorry I’m late—”

He smiles at her, and hugs back. Blood seeps into her clothes, but she doesn’t care, it’s Molly and she has missed him so much. Anyway, this isn’t really happening in real life, technically, so her clothes are fine. “I missed you,” Molly says, into her shoulder, shaking apart like a leaf in her arms. “I missed you _so much_.” The strings shake, and Molly’s crying, and Jester holds him close and shuts her eyes and cries, too.

Eventually Molly goes still in her arms again, and she pulls away to look at him, really look at him. He looks like shit, bleeding from too many places, hair all in disarray and clothes all soiled and dirty. “We’ll fix this, okay?” she says. “It’ll take time, ‘cause this is just Remove Curse, and there’s way too much to fix for just one spell, but we’ll fix this, Molly, I promise. One thread at a time.” She smooths his hair back from his face, rests her forehead against his. “We’re gonna get you all the way back.”

“I don’t,” Molly starts, then he stops, reaches up to squeeze her shoulders. “I don’t want you to get hurt while doing this for me, Jester,” he says, and she wants to smack him a little, because he’s the one who looks like shit here, he’s the one who’s got some bitchy wizard with her fingers in his head. “If something happens, if a trap gets set off and things look bad—I don’t even know _how_ you managed to dodge the one you just did, but thank the gods you did—get _out_. Please.”

Jester purses her lips and says, “And leave you like this?”

“I don’t want this either,” says Molly, “I hate this, I _hate_ being trapped like this, but I hate the idea of you getting hurt by this more.” He smiles again, but there’s a brittleness to it, a resigned sadness to the thought. “You or anyone else. I can’t stop you from setting off traps, I can’t do much, but I need you to say it. I need you to tell me, if things go horribly wrong, you’ll get out, all right? I’ll be—I’ll be fine.”

Jester bites her lip, lets out a long, slow breath. She doesn’t want to lie to Molly. She doesn’t want to break his heart even more. He’s a good person, and he deserves good things only. She looks up at the strings, the way they’re wound so tight around Molly, the way he hisses in pain when he moves.

So she says, “Only if things go, like, _super_ bad,” and puts the guilt away, for another day. The real world is calling her back, anyway, and she wonders if Molly will remember this talk. For his sake, she hopes not.

She shuts her eyes, and—

\--

At the ten-minute mark, Yasha sees light start to flood out from under the door’s crack. “Uh, guys,” she says, a hand settling on the sword at her back, ready to draw it because that’s not good, is it? She doesn’t know, but she’d rather err on the side of caution here.

Caleb turns, and immediately steps right behind Yasha, with Nott scrambling to get up on her back, careful not to block her from drawing her sword. Good. They’re both squishy, and whatever’s going to happen, Yasha can take it. If it’s Molly, snarling and trying to kill them—she’ll handle it. She’ll handle him.

Then the light fades. One minute passes. Then two. Then three, four, five—

Jester shouts, “Hey, assholes, come in!”

Okay, Jester’s fine. Yasha takes her hand off her sword, but very slowly opens the door, to find Jester pulling slightly on Molly’s hair and trying to braid it back, grumbling about how it’s somehow _even worse than Caleb’s now, god, Molly, quit moving around so much! Stay still and it won’t hurt so much._ Molly meets Yasha’s eyes, and shrugs, trying to hold himself as still as possible as Jester brushes his hair out.

“Uh,” says Nott. “Is everyone okay? I thought you were _dying_ in here or something! Or you’d gone crazy!”

“Nah, it went really well,” says Jester, her tongue poking out of a corner of her mouth as her fingers carefully separate out three different sections of Molly’s hair to put into a braid. They catch on a tangle and Molly hisses a little, a hand going up. His other hand is buried in Frumpkin’s fur. “I went after a modified memory, and Caleb, you were right, the spells are linked to each other. I took out one Modify Memory and a couple other spells fell away too, but I don’t know what they were, exactly. I tried talking to Molly but it still didn’t work, not like it does for you.”

“Molly talks to you?” says Yasha, turning to Caleb. He backs up slightly. “When did that happen? How?”

“He’s _smart_ , that’s how,” says Nott, clinging on to Yasha’s shoulder.

“It’s—We figured it out last night,” starts Caleb, and he tells Yasha now about the geas spell, the logical limits of it, how he managed to sneak in some way to get Molly to answer his questions, at least, but they haven’t quite figured out how to get him to answer anyone else, just yet. Then he turns to Molly and says, “ _Sag etwas,_ Mollymauk, please.”

“Sag what,” says Nott.

“I haven’t had a comb or a haircut in months, Jester, give me a break,” says Molly, his voice a little scratchier and rougher than it was the last time Yasha heard it so, so long ago. Her own voice catches in her throat at the sound of it. “I don’t _know_ if anything’s changed, really, and I certainly wouldn’t know if you fixed a memory that had been modified, but it was worth a good try, at least. _Ow_ , careful with that!”

“You can _talk_!” shrieks Nott, pointing at Molly. “Say something else! Anything else before the spell kicks back in!”

Molly shakes his head, and gestures to his throat.

“What are you _saying_ —”

“Stay still!” says Jester, trying to comb out a tangle.

“Here, let me,” says Yasha, patting Jester’s shoulder as Nott hops off to join back up with Caleb. “I, um, sometimes I did this for Toya. You remember Toya, right? The circus?”

Molly nods, and a weight falls off of Yasha’s heart. There’s still a quiet sadness there, because of course Molly misses the circus, it’s the only thing he’s known for two years. She does too, even if she hadn’t been there as long. It was a good place to be.

Jester scoots away, and Yasha sits down to take her place. Up close, she can see scars on Molly’s skin that weren’t there before, marring the tattoos he’d taken so much pride in. There’s a couple of scars that are even familiar to Yasha, from a time that’s long since passed with the Storm Lord saving her: half-healed scars where a neck collar chafed enough to draw blood.

She tastes bile in her throat, hears thunderstorms in her head. She wants nothing more than to track down Ikithon and Caleb’s old classmates, and rip them all apart with her bare hands, the way she wishes she did to the Shepherds. But Molly is in front of her now, and for the time being, she needs to be here instead of anywhere else. Until the Storm Lord calls.

“Hey, Caleb, let me braid your hair!” Jester says, and Yasha glances over to watch Caleb sputter a little and look at Nott, who’s pulling out a small string of flowers now and advancing on him. She chuckles when Caleb sighs and sits down, letting the two girls descend upon him with flowers and hair ties.

Then she returns to her task: combing out the tangles in Molly’s hair. It’s not too hard, she’d learned how to do it with Toya—the real trick is making sure she doesn’t hurt Molly while she’s at it. The fact that he’s mute until Caleb commands him otherwise is likely to complicate matters a little, but that’s fine. Yasha’s worked on worse.

It’s pretty stringy, though, tangled up and ragged, like someone took much of his hair off at one point and it grew out all uneven. Like he hasn’t seen a comb in a while, like he said. She combs her fingers through it as much as she can, and eventually picks out three separate sections, the way Jester did. Then she starts to plait, one section then the other, then the other, then back to the first one. Molly relaxes into her as she works, to the point where she gently has to try to push him off a little to make some room for her hands.

Eventually, she ties off the braid and stands up, and Molly reaches back to run his fingers over it. He makes a soft little noise and looks back at Yasha with a smile, so full of gratitude over such a simple thing that Yasha wonders suddenly how long it’s been since—since maybe anyone touched Molly, gentle and kind, no ulterior motive behind it. He’s a tactile kind of guy. He thrives off contact.

Then she thinks—days ago he’d been half-feral, and he’d fought like it too, like he was terrified of the outcome if he failed. He’d tried to rip Beau’s throat out with his fingernails. That wasn’t someone who knew what it was like, to be treated as a person. Yasha’d know, she’s got personal experience.

The red-hot rage bubbles up her throat. A thunderstorm roils in her head, building and building.

—Molly’s hand is in hers, and she blinks. They’re both standing now, and Frumpkin has clearly decided that he likes Molly, as he’s now curling around Molly’s ankles. Molly tilts his head, the lone moon charm dangling off his horn, and goes up on his tiptoes, lightly pecks her cheek. He pats her shoulder, then spins around to help Nott and Jester out with Caleb’s hair, carefully arranging the flowers in his braid in a satisfactory manner. His tail flicks around in contentment.

Yasha puts the anger away, for a better time. “We should probably head down,” she says. “What time is it?”

“Ten minutes to nine,” says Caleb.

Molly raises a hand, and rubs his stomach.

“If we don’t hurry Beau’s gonna eat _all_ the bacon,” says Nott. “And we have to show them Molly can talk! Sort of. In a limited capacity. And whatever else he can do now that Jester’s done her thing.”

Jester coughs, and says, “We don’t know that last one yet, I think we should test. What do you think, Molly? Uh, _sag etwas_.” Her accent is nothing like Caleb’s, the words coming out wobbly and uncertain, and Molly shakes his head sadly, losing some of the cheer he’d been bouncing around with. Yasha steps closer, rests her hand on his arm, and sees him go still for a moment before he leans in against her side.

Caleb sighs and says, with a note of authority, “ _Sag etwas,_ Mollymauk.”

“That’s going to be very inconvenient when talking with Beau,” says Molly, and of course that’s his first thought. Yasha huffs out a laugh, and he flashes her a bright smile. She’s missed that. She’s missed him. “I think we should test it out, although I’m not sure how. Ask me to do something?”

“What’s the thing that you don’t want to do right here, right now?” says Jester. Then she pauses when Molly shrugs and prods Caleb. “Can you ask him for me?”

“I could just say _sag etwas_ and he’ll answer your question, it’s not as if he’s deaf to everyone but me,” Caleb huffs, picking at a sleeve.

“I don’t particularly feel like eating bacon right now, that’s one,” says Molly, and huh, apparently that’s enough of a command to get him talking again. “We’ve got something other than that downstairs, right?”

“Muttonchops and scrambled eggs,” says Yasha, taking pity on him. “I checked.”

Nott points at Molly and says, in as authoritative a voice as possible, “Caleb, what’s the Zemnian for _eat bacon_?”

“It doesn’t work for anyone but Caleb, I tried like twice,” says Jester.

“Um,” says Caleb, trying to sink deeper and deeper into his coat. Yasha gets the feeling that if he could cast Invisibility right now, he would. She can sympathize. “Uh.” Then he says something in Zemnian that Yasha’s fairly certain is _eat bacon_.

Molly pauses a moment, like the words are sinking in. Then, slowly, very slowly, he starts to grin. Yasha knows that look. It’s the look Molly would get sometimes back in the circus, when the circus was doing particularly well and he was raking in the money from the fortunes he told. It’s the look that says everything’s working out exactly right.

He shakes his head. Then he breaks into a relieved, giddy laugh, leaning into Yasha, and she wraps an arm around him and raises an eyebrow at Caleb.

“Uh, Mollymauk, is something wrong?” says Caleb.

“Nothing!” says Molly. “No, I don’t want to eat bacon— _oh my gods_ , that feels so good! Jester, you brilliant woman, I don’t have to do everything I’m told in Zemnian!” He’s out of Yasha’s grasp in a second, practically tackling Jester to the ground in a hug. She laughs and picks him up, this time, spinning him around in her arms like he weighs about as much as a couple of grapes. Seeing as this is Jester, and she’s maybe the strongest in the group after Yasha herself, Yasha doesn’t doubt that Molly probably really does just weigh that much to her. Certainly he’s not very heavy for Yasha to carry.

“I’m the best!” Jester crows, setting Molly down gently. He laughs, dusts off his clothes. “Now come on, let’s get downstairs. It’s a very big day today.”


	9. pull the earth around me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: depiction of a panic attack (from _Verrin sighs, says, “Ugh, fine,”_ to _Molly breathes out. “I’m all right.”_ ).
> 
> title is from Florence + The Machine’s “Ship to Wreck”.

“And that,” says Beau, brandishing a strip of bacon and pointing it at Fjord like a sword, to put a period to her story, “is how Lestra and I met. Sparks fucking flying everywhere, a couple of smashed wine bottles—”

“No, see,” says Fjord, sitting up now, more alert than he had been when he’d lurched down the stairs like one of the undead, “see, what I don’t get here is, why the bear? How’d you even get a bear up the stairs? _How?_ ”

“Natural talent,” says Beau, taking a sip of water. “Plus I had a raw steak. The harder part was getting it _down_ , it already got the steak.” The stairs creak, and she glances over to see the rest of the Mighty Nein, chatting to each other. Molly’s gesturing wildly, practically dancing on his feet, his coat billowing behind him as he moves, and Jester’s chatting away about something that Beau doesn’t quite catch. “Hey guys!” she calls. “Saved some chops for you!”

Yasha sits down next to her and says, “Oh, good, I was hoping for those.” Beau very diligently tries to pretend that yeah, this is fine, this is absolutely fine, Yasha’s sitting next to her and she’s warm and ripped but so soft if Beau leans against her and Beau is _fine_ damn it.

She catches sight of Molly’s smug grin, and flips him off under the table. His tail smacks into the back of her hand. Ugh, Jester’s tail doesn’t do that, why’s Molly special?

“Hey, guys, we figured out how to make Molly talk!” says Jester, which, what. Beau props her chin up on her hand and leans forward. “It’s not gonna solve _everything_ —”

“It’s a little bit upsetting,” Nott pipes up, like nothing about this whole situation is upsetting already.

“—yeah, that too,” says Jester, “but! He can talk. Sometimes. If Caleb does the thing.” She points imperiously at Caleb, who’s gingerly pushing past Fjord to sit down on Beau’s other side, and says, “Do the thing!”

“What thing,” Beau starts.

“ _Sag etwas,_ Mollymauk, please,” says Caleb, not looking up from the book he’s pulled out from his coat.

“This thing,” says Molly. _Says Molly._ Beau’s bacon drops onto her plate from the shock of hearing his voice again, scratchier and rougher now with disuse, but it’s there, he’s talking, _he’s fucking talking_. “Surprise, I’m not completely mute! We figured it out last night, I can talk if someone very specific asks me to in Zemnian. By very specific, I mean Caleb—no, I’m not sure why, but I think it’s because everyone else is shitty at it. Oh, and Beau, I only lost because Fjord and Jester saved you, I was absolutely winning that fight until they got there.” He grins at her, that familiar annoying shit-eating grin that makes her want to punch him for being an idiot, an arrogant purple asshole.

She has missed this arrogant purple asshole so _fucking_ much.

“You just keep telling yourself that,” says Beau, and Molly flips her off again, leans back in his chair with a smugly satisfied smile.

Fjord breathes out a sigh of relief. “It’s good to have you back, Molly,” he says, with a real smile, as tired as it is. It’s good to see it, Beau thinks. Fjord hasn’t had a lot to be really happy about lately, honestly, and Beau’s trying to be a better person and notice that kind of thing in her friends. “It’s _really_ good.”

“ _Sag etwas,_ Mollymauk,” says Caleb.

“It’s good to _be_ back,” says Molly, tugging at his braid. The smug satisfaction in his grin fades into something more honest, even a little sadder. This has to be pretty damn close to Molly’s personal hell, she thinks, not being able to even talk without someone making him do it. “I hear I missed out on almost seven months—what have you all been up to, lately? Don’t leave out any details, I want to hear everything.”

“Are you gonna keep doing that every time?” says Beau to Caleb, as Jester launches into the story of how she and Nott solved a murder three months ago, _and it was the butler all along!_ “Just tell him to start talking? That’s gonna be real inconvenient for both of you.”

“I know,” says Caleb, quietly.

“There any way to get him talking without you around?” says Fjord, leaning in too.

“Do either of you know Zemnian?” says Caleb. “Because that seems very important to making him follow commands. I was only able to get him to answer any questions in Common after I told him to answer my questions in Zemnian. I—might be able to do the same, for the rest of you, it’s lasted this long for me.”

“No Zemnian here,” says Fjord. “Beau?”

“All the Zemnian I know for sure is _ja, nein_ and _scheisse_ ,” says Beau. “Sure as hell I can’t hold an argument with Molly like that.” And the idea of ordering Molly to do anything makes her stomach churn, uneasily, because—fuck, Molly’s the most contrary bastard she’s ever known. She glances over at him, sees him open his mouth then shut it again, his face falling for just a moment before his smile is back on.

Beau would go nuts, if the only way she could speak to anyone was if someone ordered her to. This is definitely a hell tailor-made for Molly, and Beau wonders suddenly what he did to warrant it. Talked back too much, maybe. Showed too much independence. Contrary bastard like that, who liked the sound of his own voice a little too much, who’d push back against you way too much, who’d fight like hell to keep everything he had—you’d have to break him. You’d have to take his voice away.

She pushes her plate of bacon away. She can’t eat a lot more, right now. “There’s other ways to communicate,” she says.

“We got a slate?” says Fjord. “Some chalk? We could go buy some.”

Caleb snaps his fingers and says, “I—No slates or chalk, but I bought a notebook yesterday. I am not sure if it’s of the quality I need for spells, but, um, I think Mollymauk may like it. It’s very ostentatious.” His hand slips into his coat again, and he brings out a notebook that’s—yeah. Yeah, it’s absolutely Molly’s fucking style: brown leather with golden swirls etched on the cover and the spine, a little purple ribbon loosely tied around it that’s attached to the spine. It looks like an expensive souvenir, at best.

He pulls a pencil out, too, and this one at least looks a little more plain than the notebook. “Mr. Mollymauk,” he says, as Jester and Nott finish up their story, and Molly looks over and tilts his head at him. “I cannot always be around to let you speak, but—there are other ways to communicate, if you need to. So I, ah, bought a book for you.” And he passes the notebook and pencil over to Molly.

Molly stares down at the notebook for a moment, then twirls the pencil around in his fingers. He looks at Caleb with a soft little smile and so much delighted gratitude in his eyes, like Caleb just gave him the fucking moon or something.

Oh, god, no, not this stupid pining bullshit again. Caleb doesn’t even seem to notice that Molly’s looking at him like he’s the best thing he’s ever seen, what a goddamn idiot. Beau looks quickly over to the bartender for a drink, because she sorely needs one if she’s going to have to sit through this again, and spies—

“Hey, Verrin!” she calls, and Verrin groans loud enough that she can hear it even from here. Beau leans over a little more to get a better view, and _damn_ , she really does look good. Sure, she’s an asshole, but she looks hot, in an unkempt kind of way, and she did beat the shit out of a guy when Beau first walked inside. Everyone Beau knows is an asshole anyway. “Hey, we spared you some bacon!”

“I had breakfast already!” Verrin yells back. “I’m not at your fucking beck and call!”

“We are _paying you_ to be at our beck and call!” shouts Nott.

“You’re paying me to be your fucking tour guide!” Verrin shouts back. “I got a life and shit! I got an actual job besides showing you tourist shits around!”

“You’re at this bar all day, woman,” says the bartender, snapping his towel at her with the practiced ease of someone who’s been tending bar for a very long time. “What kinda job have you got, warming my stools with your ass?”

Verrin scowls back at him, and flips him off.

“Bacon’s still on the table if you want some!” Beau calls again, as Verrin tips her head back and starts to pour alcohol down her throat like a champ. God. That is actually super hot. Beau sighs, and turns back to the rest of the Nein. “What?” she says.

Molly scribbles something down on the notebook. Then he turns it around for Beau to read his shitty, spiky handwriting: _You havent improvd a bit with youre flirting._ To punctuate, he even claps, slowly, with a completely unimpressed look on his face that makes Beau want to throw her plate at him. Asshole. She’d forgotten how much of a goddamn dick he could be—kind, certainly, and a much better person than Beau herself, but god, even mostly mute he still finds some way to annoy the hell out of her.

“I’m trying to be nice,” says Beau, wrinkling her nose at all the unimpressed and slightly resigned looks she’s getting. “Why’s it gotta be flirting? Come on. Maybe I just wanna be a good person, make her day better.”

“That’d be a lot more believable,” says Fjord, with a sigh, “if you weren’t checking her out just now.”

“Technically, she’s not lying, technically,” says Jester, to Nott, with a voice that’s just a tad too loud to be a real whisper, “orgasms can make your day loads better.”

Nott makes a strangled noise, like she _really_ didn’t expect that, and lightly slugs Jester’s shoulder.

Yasha folds her arms across her chest, and huffs out a breath. “She’s not that good,” she mutters, which, weird? Beau’s pretty sure Yasha saw her beating the shit out of a guy too, same as she did. But then again, Yasha’s good at punching stuff, so. Probably she’s got skewed standards for what counts as good punching, or something.

Molly’s raised an eyebrow at her, like he really can’t believe what he’s seeing in front of him right now. Which is pretty fucking weird too, because what is he seeing right now?

“So what’s on the to-do list today?” Nott says, just as Beau’s about to ask Molly what the hell he’s looking at, and right, there’s a lot of shit to do today while they’re here. “The festival’s starting later after lunch, we could do a little bit of recon, case the place before the celebrations really kick in.”

“We’ll need more information on this Rattlesnake guy,” says Fjord, drumming his fingers on the table. “Verrin’s a good source, but we can’t have her be our only source. Lestra—well, might be she’s willing enough to help us out, if we’re really taking on her job.”

“Which we are,” says Jester, and there’s a quiet, solid determination in her voice that makes Beau sit up and pay attention. There’s a small chorus of agreement from everyone else at the table. “We’re not leaving Molly like this. That’s way off the table.”

Molly looks down and away from everyone else, and tugs his coat around himself. He practically burrows into Yasha’s side, his notebook lying open on the table, little breadcrumbs already on the page.

“Yeah, we’re gonna help him get back on his feet, no way we’re gonna leave him fucked up,” says Fjord. “We could also go askin’ ‘round the place, but I’m a little bit wary, considering we’re new here and this Rattlesnake’s got a lot of people spooked hard. Not to mention he’s apparently got the Crownsguard on his side, so we’re gonna need to be careful dealing with them.” He looks at Nott and says, “Which means, _be discreet_.”

“I’m always discreet!” says Nott, a little too loudly.

“We also need to go to the library,” says Caleb, which, of fucking course he wants to go to the library. Beau can see the sheer pain in Fjord’s face at the thought of it, and she pats him consolingly on the shoulder. She hopes Caleb doesn’t ask her to come with him. Let somebody else want to stab their own eyes out with pencils for once, Beau’s got shit to do. “I need to do research on the spells in Mollymauk’s head, see if we can find another loophole to exploit, or if there’s another way besides Remove Curse and Greater Restoration to get them out.”

“We know this Rattlesnake guy’s running for Lawmaster, even though we don’t know his name,” Jester says. “We could go see the current one, ask if they know anything about the candidates and narrow down the names from there. And we know Lestra’s not a big fan of him, so maybe she can direct us to other people who aren’t big fans of him either.”

“We’ll have to talk to Lestra anyway, let her know we’re taking on her job,” says Fjord. “Beau, you feel like coming with us? You know her best.”

Beau lets out a long, slow sigh, and slumps into her seat. “I think I’ll just Molly-sit today,” she says, because possibly having to fight off a feral blood hunter who can pass through her is way more appealing than having to talk to Lestra, what with the way their, ah, _association_ ended. Which was really more Lestra’s fault than Beau’s, but, fuck, still. Beau doesn’t want to talk to her, see her come up with some kind of excuse for how badly it all ended. And she just _knows_ she will, even years after that mess. “You okay with that?”

“Mollymauk, what do you think?” says Caleb.

“Hell, no, you go talk to your ex,” says Molly, which, wow. Wow, what an asshole, she can’t believe she missed him so much. “Fjord’s right, you know her best, maybe your being there might help us out. Anyway, there’s more than enough of me to go around, I’m sure you can share with someone else for once—I’m not very picky who.” He waggles his eyebrows, and Beau very discreetly flicks a bit of bacon from her plate at his face. It lands into his braid, and he makes an irritated face at her as he picks it out of his hair. He doesn’t say anything more, though, so she figures the spell’s kicked in again.

“Caleb and I’ll take you,” says Nott, munching on some donuts from Jester’s bag. “You need Caleb around so you can talk, after all. Although—we’re going to the library, right? So maybe you won’t have to talk so much.”

Molly makes a face and writes, _do we kno where library is?_

“We will have to ask Verrin to take us there,” says Caleb, with a sigh, like he’s not a huge fan of that idea. Judging from Molly’s irritated sigh, neither’s he. “And then we can find our own way back, hopefully before the festival gets started.”

Yeah, Beau’s pretty sure they’re not getting out of there until nightfall, knowing Caleb. She smiles beatifically at Molly, and watches his face go from that usual vague amusement to slight horror when he sees the smile. He looks at Fjord, and his mouth stretches up and over his teeth—

—what, really, does she still smile like that?

“We’re working on it,” says Fjord, with a sigh. “All right, so that’s our to-do list for the morning down. Beau, Jester, Yasha and I are heading to Lestra’s, and Caleb and Nott are taking Molly to the library. The rest we’ll figure out soon as we meet back up here for lunch. Everyone’s all right with that?”

There’s a chorus of _yeah_ s, one _ja_ , and Molly scribbling an underlined _YES_ onto the pages of his notebook.

Fjord’s chair scrapes back, and he calls out to the bar, “Hey, Verrin! You know where the library is? A couple of us gotta make a trip there!”

There’s a long, drawn-out groan from the bar, before Verrin stands up, slamming her tankard down on the counter.

And if Beau’s gaze trails a little bit downwards towards her legs as Verrin stomps over, well, nobody’s gotta know.

\--

Just before they head out of the inn, while Caleb’s talking to that strange woman, what was her name, Verrin, Molly feels a sharp tug on his sleeve. He glances down to see Nott, looking up at him with yellow eyes above a cracked porcelain mask. _What’s up,_ he almost says, but the spell forces his throat closed, so all that comes out of him is a confused noise.

“I’ve kind of got the Itch, right now,” Nott confesses, which, yeah, okay, bad. Very bad timing, that itch. They cannot piss off the Crownsguard in this town, they’re trying to avoid attention. “So I’m gonna need your help, and Caleb’s, because we’re going to con some very grumpy people.”

Oh, Molly’s definitely listening. He likes the idea of lightening the burdens of some incredibly grumpy people, and if it satisfies Nott’s Itch, well, that’s two birds down with one stone.

“We worked out a bunch of cons, all of us, while you were—away,” says Nott. Molly crouches down a little more to get on her eye level. “Well, me and Caleb worked out most of them by ourselves, but we adjusted a little for the rest, and we even took some suggestions. And we have a pretty good one that you could be a part of, even if you can’t talk right now. But Jester said I’ve got to run cons by everyone else now if we have time before we pull them off, because the last time we did Modern Literature, you were—”

She stops. Molly doesn’t need her to finish to know what she’s going to say. _You were dead._

He swallows the fear that bubbles up in his throat, at what little he remembers of it. The glaive in his chest, the fading darkness, _at least Beau’ll be safe_ —and then nothing, after that, just empty darkness. After the darkness—he stops that thought right then and there. Nothing good waits for him, down that path.

“Anyway,” Nott hurries on, “so, this one, it’s a three-person job. We call it Terribly Sorry. I steal stuff, and Caleb and somebody else make a distraction by being clumsy, or weird, or just attention-catching in general.” She prods Molly’s chest, and says, “You could pretend to be Feebleminded, and trip over everything, and Caleb’ll go behind you and be very, very sorry, and in the meantime I’ll be taking off their stuff. How do you feel about that?”

Oh, Molly _likes_ this idea. He’s conned people while nonverbal before, after all, this one’s gonna be fun. He grins and nods, enthusiastically.

“Great!” says Nott, as Caleb rejoins them, Frumpkin trailing behind just a few feet away. “Hey, Caleb! Hey, Verrin.”

Molly graces the woman with an enigmatic smile, watching her as closely as possible. They’ve hired her for the festival, so he’ll be on his very best behavior, but he doesn’t quite like her. She knows something, he’s sure. She definitely knew enough about his weird blood powers to call him a blood hunter on sight, when he thought they weren’t very well-known at all. And something about her—she’s hiding something, he thinks. Whatever that thing is, it’s likely to bite them right on the ass.

...although between the two of them, it’s not like Molly’s got any room to talk. He’s the one with the magical trap sitting in his head, and the wizard digging her fingers in too. He shifts a little closer to Caleb, and hopes that’s enough.

“Verrin,” says Caleb, politely.

“Weirdo,” says Verrin, not as politely.

Nott bristles.

“We did not introduce ourselves properly,” says Caleb, as they step out of the inn and into the fresh air, where people are already bustling about and shouting at each other, putting up more decorations than there were yesterday, “and we—really must rectify that, I suppose. My name is Caleb Widogast, this is Nott the Brave—”

“No comma,” says Nott.

“—and Mollymauk Tealeaf,” Caleb finishes, and Molly snaps off a lazy salute. “Molly, for short.”

“Tealeaf’s a halfling name,” says Verrin.

Molly shrugs in answer. Months ago he’d have some bullshit spun around that by now, fallen back on the good old _adopted by kind halflings after being found as a babe abandoned in the woods_ story, and followed it wherever it went. But right now he can’t spin that story out, so he settles for the enigmatic, vague smile, and shoves his shaking hands into the pockets of his coat. Oh, there’s a hole in one of them, he really has to patch that up. Or get someone to patch that up, considering the damage he did with a sewing needle.

“Just gonna keep up the not talking, huh,” she says. “Fine. Go ahead. None of you pay me enough to care, anyway.” She shoves her hands into her pockets, purses her lips as they set off with her in the lead, and Molly following just behind her. “Right, so you guys want the library. There’s two of those in Lynbroke, you’ll have to be a lot more specific than _hey, take me to the library_ , because one of them is fucking hell to even get into ‘cause it’s associated with Lady Margaret’s school, which is aligned with the Soltryce Academy, and the other’s next to useless for your purposes.”

Molly sucks in a breath, at the mention of the Academy, and looks back at Caleb. Some part of him wonders hysterically if anyone at the Academy’s looking for him, right now—Astrid definitely is, no doubt about that. Has she started searching for him in earnest? Has she told others to look out for a red-eyed lavender tiefling, with tattoos?

Oh, god. He shouldn’t have come.

“Our purposes are simply for research,” says Caleb. Not false. His hand sneaks into Molly’s and squeezes tight, and Molly’s breath comes a little bit easier, even as Caleb’s hand then slips out of his. “And I would like to visit both libraries, really. I am a big fan of books, and there are a couple I have been trying to track down for some time. Perhaps they may be in the other library you spoke of, the one that is unaligned with the Academy.”

“Fuck, no,” says Verrin. “You guys’re looking for some magic shit? Not gonna be in the community library. That one’s for general shit, storybooks and encyclopedias and reference books, and all the books there get carefully screened for any magical shit going on. If there are, it’s off to Lady Margaret’s. They stuck that policy in place after—well, some shit happened a while back, ‘s’all.” She looks away from them as she talks, but her footsteps get heavier as she speaks, and Molly wonders what kind of shit that had been. “But hey, knock yourself out.”

“What shit was this?” says Nott.

Verrin huffs out a breath. “Someone found something in there they shouldn’t have found,” she says, keeping her gaze straight ahead. “You’re nosy and fucking weird, kid.”

“I’m an adult halfling,” says Nott, unconvincingly.

“And I’m the ruler of fucking Ank’harel,” says Verrin, turning around and walking backwards as they continue on down the pavement. They must all look strange from an outsider’s perspective, this grungy, grumpy woman in dark clothes talking to a dirty wizard, a hooded halfling-shaped person, and Molly, in his coat, with his tattoos and his scars. Absently, he tugs the collar of his coat up a little more. Maybe he should throw the hood on when they get to the more populated areas, try to keep himself from being seen too much, try to keep a little attention off of them.

Then he thinks, a little bit viciously, _Quit being paranoid, Tealeaf._

Fuck, he never used to be so paranoid. Was he?

There’s no answer to that.

“So what do you need to do, then,” Caleb’s saying, “to get into the other one? The one you said was more difficult to get into?”

“You need papers to get in,” says Verrin. “From some kinda higher authority or whatever who’s related to whatever you want to read about. You gotta jump through a ton of hoops to get that signature and those papers, and then you can’t check anything out, especially if they’re on magic. Something about _keeping the general populace from getting their hands on powerful magics that could prove disastrous in the wrong hands,_ ” she quotes, her voice slipping into a slightly higher pitch.

“We can manage the papers,” says Caleb.

“They’re gonna know what a forgery looks like,” says Verrin. “They’re not fucking stupid.”

“We’re not gonna _forge_ the papers, we’re not fucking stupid either,” says Nott, bristling again. Molly can sympathize. Verrin’s something of a shit, and not even the fun kind of shit that Beau is, where he can rile her up for kicks. Something about Verrin screams _don’t fucking touch me or I will explode_ , and Molly’s not keen on causing explosions. Still, at least she’s a helpful shit, for as long as she’s holding out for that fifty gold at the end of this. “We’re going to talk to whoever we need to talk to and get those papers signed. How hard could it be?”

Oh, she just had to say that, didn’t she. Molly nervously rocks onto his heels and back onto the balls of his feet. How hard could it be? Considering that they’re about to celebrate a long festival about their most famous figure’s most famous victory, Molly’s pretty sure it’ll be pretty damn hard. And that’s without taking into account the fact that the higher authorities in this town are, apparently, soaked in corruption and crime.

That “being alone” plan is starting to look more and more attractive. Just—not enough for Molly not to recoil at the very idea. He’s never _been_ alone, not willingly. He’d been scared of it before this whole mess happened, now he’s downright _terrified_ even when it’s his own idea.

“Pretty fucking hard now,” says Verrin. “You got a festival, you got the Lawmaster retiring, you got the usual Lynbroke Crownsguard bullshit but even _worse_ , and you’re never gonna get those papers you want. And you can’t even cast a spell to fake it in ‘cause they’ve got anti-magic wards all over the damn place.”

“We’re the Mighty Nein, we have our ways,” says Caleb, and Molly wants to ask _what ways?_ The last he knew of the Mighty Nein, they’d just been a bunch of dumbasses taking on any job. “It is—interesting, that you know all this.”

Verrin’s mouth presses together into a thin line. “Maybe it’s just my job to know shit,” she says, and Molly’s a champion bullshitter, he knows a lie when he hears one. “You’re paying me to talk about shit, not to talk about fuck-all about how I know shit, anyway.”

The words itch in the back of Molly’s throat: a smart remark, a joke about how a little more gold might loosen her lips on that, too. But the geas digs its claws in, and all Molly can do is purse his lips and be thankful she can’t see his hands shaking.

Caleb lets out a breath, but doesn’t pursue that line of questioning any further as Verrin leads them out of the district. Molly knows they’re out of the less popular district because the stalls start popping up, the crowds start to thicken, and Frumpkin, who’s been trailing behind them for a while, gets snapped from just behind Nott to just onto Molly’s shoulders. He stumbles somewhat from the surprise of it, not having expected a _cat_ to magically appear onto his shoulders, but he rights himself in time and pets the familiar.

Frumpkin meows, contented. He’s got his shit together, this cat.

Nott scrambles forward towards Caleb and Molly as Verrin guides them through the crowds. “Do you think she needs watching?” she whispers.

Molly nods. Of course she needs watching. She knows shit she shouldn’t need to know, for someone who spends all day in a bar starting fights and drinking too much.

Caleb huffs out a breath. “She does,” he says. “One of us will have to keep an eye on her, when we get there. I don’t trust her. What about you, Mollymauk?”

“She’s very grumpy, that’s for sure,” Molly says. “No, I don’t trust her either. She knows a lot more than I’d expect a random drunk in a bar to know.” He glances in her direction, watches her spit a curse at someone in the way. They snap back at her, and flip her off as they walk on by. “I could keep an eye on her.”

“I could too,” says Nott.

“Frumpkin could also keep an eye on her,” Caleb points out.

Molly doesn’t tell him that a woman like Verrin seems very liable to kick his cat into nonexistence out of frustration. She’s tetchy, haunted by something, and taking it out on everyone else around her. She’d definitely kick Frumpkin. Molly doesn’t want her to kick Frumpkin.

It’s Nott who says, “No, I’ll do it. I’m _sneaky_. A lot sneakier than you, Molly. I can keep track of her if she slips away, she’ll never even know I’m there, and I’ll even be able to message back.”

It’s not a bad plan. Molly looks at Caleb, who nods a little, then looks back at Nott and nods as well.

They’re just a block or two away from the library when someone calls, singsong, “Piragua! Piragua! Just a copper a cup, any flavor you like!”

“Oh, great, it’s the fucking piragua guy,” Verrin groans, stopping them in their tracks as a large dragonborn carrying a stack of cups, a bucket of shaved ice, and various vials walks into their path. “Don’t make eye contact. Whatever you do, don’t _look at him_ —”

A copper a cup, huh? Molly waves at the guy, and he stops in place and grins happily, showing off sharp teeth.

“Oh, hello!” the piragua guy says, all but running over to them now. Verrin tilts her head up towards the sky and groans, scrubbing a hand over her face, but Molly can’t really bring himself to care about her. “Hello, hello, hello—you’re new in town, aren’t you?”

He nods, enthusiastic. The guy might loom over him, but his grin is so dopey that Molly’s actually a little bit calmer. He points to the shaved ice, one hand already searching his coat for a couple of coppers.

“Oh, right, yes, piragua,” says the dragonborn. “Just a copper a cup—do your friends want some?”

“It wouldn’t hurt,” says Nott.

Caleb shrugs, and says, “I suppose if you two are trying it, I don’t want to miss out.”

“Tourists,” mutters Verrin, stepping away from them just enough that Molly’s certain she’s trying to pretend she doesn’t know them. “Fucking tourists.”

Very grumpy, this woman. Molly flips the dragonborn two silvers, just to see the floored look on his face, and watches him sputter with surprise.

“This—This is a lot!” says the guy, catching and fumbling with the silvers as he tries to put them away. “I, oh, wow, I didn’t—you guys are sure about that? Two whole silvers—”

Molly flaps a hand at him.

“He says keep the change,” Caleb translates after a moment. Molly nods, and reaches his arm up to pat the dragonborn on the shoulder. Gods, this guy’s tall.

“Oh,” says the piragua guy, faintly. He looks down at Molly, and awkwardly pets the top of his head, scales scraping over horns. Molly stays very still, and tries not to make it obvious that this is—not great, apparently, for him. “Thanks? I think. Um, what flavors do you guys want? I got strawberry, I got chocolate, I got lemon, I got orange, and just for the week I got watermelon too!”

“I want orange,” says Nott.

“I always did like strawberries,” says Caleb, thoughtfully. “Mollymauk, what do you think?”

Molly flashes him a grin and says to the dragonborn, reveling in the sound of his own voice, “Surprise me!”

Verrin, just behind them, splutters in shock. Right, she doesn’t know he does talk, sometimes. He hopes that’s all there is to it, anyway.

“Oh, okay,” says the piragua guy, scooping out some shaved ice and pouring it into a cup. Then he uncorks one of the vials and pours the contents in, stirring the ice and the new liquid around with a little spoon till it’s well and truly mixed. He does this twice more with different vials, handing the first to Nott, the second to Caleb, and the third, a cup of shaved ice and something brown, to Molly. “It’s the _best_ treat in town,” he says encouragingly.

Molly digs out a little pile of shaved ice with his spoon, and licks it off. Immediately the cold hits, but with it comes a burst of—sweetness, he realizes, a taste not unlike some of the donuts Jester carries around in her bag. Only this doesn’t have the lingering taste of staleness, it’s just cold and sweet and _amazingly good_. How long has it been since he last treated himself anyway?

The answer comes very quickly: _since you died._

Molly scowls down at his cup and jams another spoonful of delicious flavored ice into his mouth.

“ _Danke_ , friend, this is a wonderful treat,” Caleb’s saying, and the dragonborn’s laughing a little, scratching the back of his head.

“Welcome!” says the piragua guy. “Listen, I gotta go, I’ve got like, a whole festival to cater to, but—you ever want another cup, stop on by the Shield’s Grace inn, any time.” He snaps off a salute in Molly’s direction, and says, “You’re a good guy, y’know,” before he ambles away, tail swinging back and forth, and melts into the crowd.

“The fuck, you can _talk_ ,” says Verrin at last. “And that shit’s not worth that much money.”

Molly grins at her, the spoon sticking out of the side of his mouth.

“He talks sometimes,” says Nott. “He likes to be _mysterious_.” For emphasis, she wiggles her fingers at Verrin, who stares down at her and inches away further. Then she looks around the crowd, and Molly sees the faint crease of worry between her eyebrows. He glances to Caleb, who’s already moved closer as casually as possible, shielding Nott as best as he can from sight.

Molly follows, giving his coat a little flourish as he does to draw attention away from Nott. Sure enough, there’s a couple of people gawking at him, the lavender tiefling with a tattoo snaking up his face and a beautiful eyesore of a coat, not paying attention to the grimy girl rapidly finishing her treat. He flashes them a grin and keeps going with his piragua.

Verrin doesn’t say a word, but Molly can see the clockwork gears turning in her head. He hopes she’s as good as not caring about someone’s shit as she says she is.

Eventually Nott puts her mask back on, and says, “Okay, so—community library first, and then what’s the one that’s associated with the Academy?”

“Lady Margaret’s Hall,” says Verrin. “Again, you can’t get in there without papers. Believe me, people have tried, and usually they _fail_.”

“Again, we can get the papers,” says Caleb. “But we’ll worry about those later. For now, take us the rest of the way, please.”

Verrin sighs, says, “Ugh, fine,” and roughly shoves her way past Molly to take up her place in front again _and the warmage strides forward after pushing past him, fire flickering around his fingertips, an arrogant smile on his face, “Come on, then,_ Jagdhund _, those traitors won’t hunt themselves.”_

_His fingers twitch towards his swords, and some part of him thinks it wouldn’t be so bad, would it, if he could jam one through this bastard’s ribs, never mind what the consequences would be, never mind the cell she’d throw him in for such an offense, never mind the psychic backlash from the geas that would surely kill him if he did so, but then the warmage turns and snaps harshly out, “come on,_ folgt mir _, we don’t have all day”—_

“Mollymauk?”

What?

“Molly? Molly, come on, you’re worrying us, hey, Molly?”

Who—Who the hell’s Molly?

“Mollymauk, _bitte, sag etwas, rede mit mir —”_

The urge to talk, to tell them everything—isn’t there, he realizes, suddenly. The geas has loosened for a little time, and he could talk if he wants to, but he doesn’t—he can’t find it in himself to talk, right now. Can barely even breathe, the panic swelling in his throat and closing it off and suffocating him the way the geas never could, can’t speak can’t move can’t breathe oh god he’s going to die _no please no I don’t want to go—_

“Molly? Oh, shit, Caleb, this is bad, he looks worse than you did when we met—”

“The fuck is going on? Come on, I’ll help you get him out of here, there’s an alley just nearby—” 

“Mollymauk?” The voices cut through his haze, and he blinks, dazed. He’s sitting down, he thinks, curled up underneath a warm coat. He blinks, looks up, and light catches and glints on something that dangles on the tip of his horn. _Oh, that’s Jester’s,_ some part of him thinks. Then he remembers: oh. Right. 

“Mollymauk, it’s just us,” says a man in front of him, human, his voice faintly and familiarly accented. There’s a warm hand on his cheek, calloused and just a little bit hotter than usual. “Can you hear us? Give me a nod if you can.” 

He nods, once, trying to get his breath back, drawing the coat closer around himself and curling up and—

“Good. Follow how I breathe, Mollymauk, _bitte_?” A slow inhale, then an exhale. He follows, obedient, because what else can he do—he inhales, then exhales, slowly, deliberately. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. “You’re doing good, you’re doing well.” Then the hand pats his cheek, just hard enough to catch his attention, and Molly blinks awake. “Are you all right?” Caleb asks, worry in his eyes. He’s still touching Molly, one hand on his cheek and the other on his arm, and they’re so close that Molly can see the freckles under the dirt and grime, little flecks of green in his blue eyes. 

Molly breathes out. “I’m all right,” he says.

Caleb sighs, relieved. “Time for this later, _ja_?” he says, smoothing Molly’s hair back from his face. He hadn’t realized some of it had escaped Yasha’s braid.

He’s a little bit disappointed Caleb doesn’t follow up with a kiss to the forehead, just to return the favor from Alfield. But he’ll take it.

He lets Caleb pull him up to his feet, and glances briefly at Verrin and Nott, who’ve stationed themselves just out of the alleyway, leaning against the wall and snapping off a snarling word at the occasional passerby, scaring them off. Keeping watch, Molly realizes.

“Molly!” says Nott, as Molly and Caleb come up, with Molly leaning just a little more than he perhaps should be into Caleb’s side. “Oh, good, you’re okay! We were worried, you just went all _blank_ for a moment, and I thought Verrin did something to you because she’s very suspicious—”

“I didn’t, by the way, your friend’s just real fucking paranoid,” says Verrin, but surprisingly enough she actually looks—relieved, somehow, to see him upright. Weird woman. “You’re really fucked up, aren’t you.”

Molly smiles cheerfully at her. He hopes it looks cheerful, anyway, because he feels shattered and shaky inside, feels like he could possibly break into a thousand pieces if he falls over. And he could fall over, in this state, coming down from the panic. Something throbs, dully, in his chest, like an old half-healed stab wound.

Judging from Nott’s deeply concerned look, that idea definitely did not work out.

“Should we keep going?” she asks.

Molly nods. He nudges Caleb’s side, too, and gives him a reassuring smile. After a moment Caleb sighs and nods as well. His grip on Molly grows just a little bit tighter, though, like he’s scared to let him go. Not like Molly can blame him. He’s scared to let go, too.

Verrin watches him, her expression unreadable, but when she takes her place to the front of the group again to guide them, she’s careful not to touch him.

He’ll thank her for that, later.


	10. world keeps spinning around

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from Kodaline’s “High Hopes”.
> 
> as a note, some minor edits have been made to reflect canon events. (CALEB KILLED LORENZO FUCK YEAH.)

The first time Beau sets foot in Lestra’s territory in years, and the first thing she thinks is, _There is no way this is actually Lestra’s place._ It’s so neat, for one thing, everything carefully arranged and sorted by an understandable order, and there’s nothing more ostentatious than some curtains screening the back room from the front. Then she catches sight of what’s on those curtains, a tasteful depiction of Lady Margaret’s famous one-night tryst with a paladin of the Platinum Dragon, and—yeah. Definitely Lestra’s taste.

She nudges Jester, and says, “Hey, look.”

“Holy _shit,_ ” whispers Jester, with a grin. “That wasn’t there yesterday!”

Ah, that’s more familiar territory. “She doesn’t believe in keeping the same display too long,” Beau says, and she can’t quite stop the nostalgia from creeping in. God fuck dammit. She tucks her hands into her pockets, and looks around—the place doesn’t look very crowded today either, with just a redheaded dwarf in heavy blue-ish armor talking quietly with her frizzy-haired human friend besides the four of them.

Yasha drifts over to one of the aisles, peeks into one of the jars, and frowns. “I think these are real eyes, not glass eyes,” she says, pointing to the inside, full of eyes floating in some kind of formula Beau really does not want to think about.

“Oh, that’s just me,” says Jester. “I swapped lots of shit around yesterday. I wish we’d stuck around to see her face.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” says Fjord. “Kinda wish we did, honestly. She seems like she’d take it in good fun.”

“Miss Fancybottom!” booms a familiar voice, as _fucking Lestra_ comes through the curtain. Her smile’s blinding, her eyes are sparkling, and her dress hugs all the right places on her body, and Beau’s mouth just drops, a little bit, because. Wow. She grew her hair out. Little asshole grew her fucking hair out, the way she and Beau had always joked they hated. “Mort!”

“Fjord,” says Fjord.

“Strange woman with the eyes!”

“Yasha,” says Yasha, looking a little bit caught out when Beau looks over to her. There’s a shiny little trinket in her hand, like the kind Molly would’ve liked to thread through his horns, months ago. She puts it back onto the shelf.

Lestra turns with a laugh. The laugh freezes then and there.

“Oh,” she says, all traces of her outlandish accent gone. “Beau?”

“Hey, Les,” says Beau. “Grew your hair out, I see.”

“You got a haircut,” says Lestra, her voice an awkward, strangled thing. “Wow. Rode, Miss Fancybottom, you could’ve warned me you were bringing Beau with you. I would’ve been a little bit more prepared.” She tries a laugh, but it tapers off after a moment, and she looks away from Beau, guiltily.

Fjord sighs, clearly resigned.

“With that apology?” says Beau, not bothering to keep the age-old bitterness back. “I think you’ve had a lot of time to think it over.”

“Uh,” says Jester.

“Oh, gods, Beau,” says Lestra with a sigh, running her hand through her luxurious goddamn hair, “I told you, I didn’t _mean_ to—things just worked out that way, that’s all.”

“Um,” says Yasha.

“They didn’t _have to_ ,” says Beau, testy. Gods, she knew this was a bad idea, why’d she agree to come along? “But that’s always your excuse for everything, isn’t it? You’re not manipulating people’s fates, you’re only letting things play out as they will. What a great excuse.”

Fjord coughs, and says, “We’re not here to bring up the past,” as calmly as possible. “We’re here ‘cause our friend got hit with Feeblemind, a little while ago, and we can’t wait thirty days to possibly get him back. Now, you offered to help us if we helped you with your supply problems.” He lifts his chin up, and says, “Is that offer still on the table?”

Right. She’s here because Molly’s head is fucked to hell and back, even if Feeblemind isn’t strictly the spell they’re trying to undo. Beau shuts her eyes, breathes in then out, and forces her fists to unclench.

Yasha comes up behind her, and bumps her shoulder, a reassuring presence as long as she’s here. Certainly she’s not the steadiest of the Nein, with her commitment to the Storm Lord, but when she’s here Beau feels—better, a little. Maybe even more centered, when it comes to shit like this. Like Lestra, still trying to deny what happened all these years later, like an asshole.

Lestra sighs. “Yes, it’s still on the table,” she says. She looks around at the shop surrounding her, spotting the dwarf and the human comparing jars of dust now, and says, “Come inside, I’m not a huge fan of staying out here where almost anyone can hear me. Rattlesnake is—a big deal, let’s just say.”

“Yeah, Verrin said a lot about him,” says Jester.

“Verlis is a treasure and a gem, but her highest priority for the past few months has been making sure she doesn’t catch the Crownsguard’s attention,” says Lestra, and Beau damn well knows she’s just holding up the affectation out of habit, right now. Her eyes keep darting to the two women, before tearing away and landing back on Beau, and the rest of them. “Don’t ask me why, either, I’m damned if I know. But if you’ll come this way,” she says, gesturing to the tastefully-decorated curtain, “we can talk more freely, I’m sure.”

Beau sticks a little bit closer to Yasha, her hand resting on her staff. “No funny business,” she warns Lestra. “And trust me, I’ll know.”

“I wouldn’t dream of trying anything funny with you around, Beau,” says Lestra, holding her hands up in a gesture of peace. All a show, Beau’s sure, the woman’s a born showman at heart. She doesn’t let herself think of Molly.

Fjord steps through first, Jester following quickly behind. Beau follows on Yasha’s heels, and the first thing that hits her is that, yeah, this back room? Way more to Lestra’s tastes than the front: there’s translucent red tapestries dangling from the ceiling, a round table made of some type of sturdy wood in the middle, classy-looking furniture with velvet upholstery, and the scent of sandalwood and roses drifting throughout the air. Lestra claps, and Beau hears the faint notes of music. _Familiar_ music, like the songs Beau used to hear her mother play all the time on the piano, entertaining her father’s guests.

“Quit it with the music,” Beau rasps, her voice coming out more choked than she thought it would be.

“Sorry,” says Lestra. She almost sounds sincere about it, too. She claps again, and the notes fade away to silence and stillness. “I thought—well, never mind.” She walks over to a cabinet, opens it up, and Beau doesn’t see clothes: instead she sees rolled-up scrolls and scraps of parchment. Lestra trails her finger over each one, murmuring, before she grabs one bound by twine and shuts the door.

“How do you two know each other, again?” Yasha whispers.

“We fucked each other over,” says Beau. Then she pauses, reconsidering. “Well, she fucked me over more, anyway.”

“And this is who we need to talk to,” says Yasha, her brow furrowing, “so we can get help for Molly? That’s not a good idea.”

“If you’ve got better ones I’m all ears,” Beau murmurs. “Sure as hell I don’t want to owe her shit either, after what happened.”

“It’s a favor for a favor,” Fjord whispers. “We’ll be even with her at the end of this.” He straightens back up as Lestra puts the scroll down on the table and undoes the knot. “What’s this for?”

“This is my warehouse’s layout, at the time it was ripped out from under me,” says Lestra. “Rattlesnake—well, you know a lot of the details by now, from Verrin, but she’s got a fear of really fucking with the Crownsguard, which is understandable in this town but puts _me_ in a rather untenable position.” She taps her fingernails against the wood, _click click click_. “She’s scared to even say his name. A lot of people in town are.”

“And I suppose you don’t share that fear?” says Fjord.

Lestra lets out a long, slow breath. “I’m not going to lie and say he doesn’t scare the shit out of me,” she says. “He does. I like living. That being said, the _fucker_ needs to learn that some lines you just don’t cross, and one of those is using the Crownsguard to steal one of your rivals’ warehouses straight out from under her. The _least_ you could do is to hire outside the actual guard.”

“Feel like that’s still a little bit cheating,” says Beau.

“Yeah, but it’s the kind of cheating where you don’t drag in _the actual Empire’s goons_ ,” says Lestra. “If they are still the Empire’s, at this point. I daresay they’re more Rattlesnake’s now than the King’s, but you’ve got to give the guy this, he doesn’t make it obvious to most people that they’re not entirely the king’s men, anymore.” She huffs out a tired laugh. “They belong to whoever can bid the highest for their loyalty, at this point.”

“I take it that’s this Rattlesnake, then,” says Fjord, “whose name you haven’t said yet, by the way.”

“Sounds like you’re really scared of him,” says Beau. “We’re in a private room, there’s nobody here but you and the four of us, and sure as hell we’ve never even heard of the guy before now. So. _What’s his name?_ ”

“I’m getting to that, I’m getting to that,” says Lestra, unrolling the scroll. Sure enough, there’s a layout etched onto the parchment, somewhat worn with time but still readable, still something they can follow. “It’s Markos Rojen. Do any of you recognize that name?”

“I do!” chirps Jester. “He used to visit my mom sometimes. He’s the guy with the little beady eyes, right?” To demonstrate, she screws her face up, narrowing her eyes until Beau can barely see her pupils. “Mom always said he was kind of unsatisfying, as customers went.”

“Huh,” says Lestra. “Well, your mother’s a woman of good sense, at least.” She draws a dagger out and weighs one end of the paper down with it, to keep it from rolling back up on itself.

“Did she say anything else about him?” says Beau. “Aside from the fact that apparently his dick was just that bad. Did she give you a description?”

“I _drew him_ ,” says Jester, sounding a little bit offended that Beau actually doubted her. Which, okay, fair. Beau’s not gonna do that in the future. “Although that was, like, six or seven years ago, so let me just check.” She starts to rummage through her bag, muttering to herself as she sets it down onto the table.

“Other than Jester, none of us have ever heard of this Rojen,” says Fjord. “Is he from this place? Or is he a transplant from somewhere else?”

“He’s from Lynbroke, that’s for sure,” says Lestra, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. “Nobody talks up Lynbroke like Lynbroke people do. You’d think they have the jewels of the Empire, the way they brag.” She snorts out a derisive laugh. “Rojen, though, he’s something else. He’s _possessive_ of the city, says he’s got a vision for it—I got a feeling if he could he’d buy up the whole thing and arrange it just right so that all the grime and the muck gets cleaned out and packed off to somewhere else.”

“And by grime and muck,” says Beau, “he doesn’t just mean _grime and muck_.”

“A very high-minded criminal, is Rattlesnake,” says Lestra. “How his brain doesn’t implode on itself is a mystery.” She sighs. “Anyway, in his ongoing campaign for Lawmaster, he had my warehouse, _my goods_ seized by the Crownsguard. Currently the fuck’s thugs are squatting in _my warehouse_ , and gods only know what they’re doing to my goods.”

“Can’t be worse than what you do to it,” says Beau, resting her palms on the table and looking over the layout. Seems simple enough to her: two floors above the ground for the legitimate stuff, four floors under for the real business. Their best bet’s having Nott break in through the back and let them through another entrance, there’s at least four Beau can see that aren’t very obvious to someone without a map. Although she’s certain some of those entrances might’ve been filled up, already.

“There’s an _art_ to cheating that people just do not get,” sighs Lestra, and, oh boy, this _again_. Beau braces herself for an hour-long rant on cheating and cutting corners and how there’s an art that no one but Lestra could _possibly_ understand, but then Lestra continues: “But we’ve gone over that argument before, so I’m not going to bore you or your friends with it. I can act professionally. It’s not impossible.”

“Sure, you can,” Beau drawls.

“Oh, _there_ you go again, you asshole—” Lestra starts, bristling at the jab to her professionalism.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Jester interrupts, passing Beau her sketchbook and tapping one figure in particular, “since we’re gonna be breaking into your warehouse to steal your shit back, do you know what the security there is like? Because save for our friend the one who got Feebleminded, we’re all really good at stealthing around.” She smiles. There’s something a little sharper than before about it, now. It makes Beau think of Molly, the way he smiled like he knew a secret no one else was in on.

Beau glances down, and squints at the old drawing. Whoever this Rojen guy is, he hasn’t left a favorable impression on Jester: screened through her pencil, he’s very thin, sneering down his nose so much that he’s gone cross-eyed, and he has an incredibly tiny dick. There’s a small hamster unicorn gnawing at his dick.

Yasha leans over and covers her mouth, muffling a giggle.

“Somewhat, yeah,” says Lestra. “I haven’t been back in a while, I can’t speak of how accurate this is, but I used to rotate the guards out fairly regularly—patrols every three hours, different guards every time.” She scowls down at her map and says, “Of course, they weren’t of much help when Rattlesnake decided I was too annoying to leave alone. It’s highly likely he’s upped the security, so I advise taking some time to learn their patterns.”

“Did you augment the security in any way, magically speaking?” Fjord asks. “Is there a risk we might set them off?”

“A little bit, yeah,” says Lestra. “My wards should actually still be there—Rattlesnake has as much magical talent as an overripe tomato, unless he’s hired on a mage at some point. Which I don’t think he’s done, so far, but—well, with the festival on, he might be looking into the idea, at least. Again, _learn their patterns_.”

“You don’t have to tell us that,” says Beau, remembering the snowfall in the back of her mind, Molly’s blood seeping out and staining it red, his eyes staring up at the sky, unseeing. Look at what bad info got him. Look at what bad info got all of them. Out of habit, her hand tucks into her pocket, seeking his cards, but finds nothing. She remembers: she gave them back to him.

“Mm, I can see it’s haunting you,” says Lestra, eyes darting from Beau to Yasha to Jester to Fjord. “Your friend the Feebleminded one got hurt because of bad info, didn’t he?”

“That,” says Yasha, very softly, with anger flaring in her mismatched eyes, “is not any of your business.”

“Point taken,” says Lestra, holding her hands up. Beau’s fists unclench, and she starts to breathe easier again. “As for the risks from my wards, well, if you’re not careful, you may just get burned, poisoned, or shot with arrows—that last one’s not warded, it’s a trap door on the entrance to the second floor underground. My goods should be there,” she says, pointing to the second floor downward from the ground. “In a vault. It’s not easy to pick, I’ll warn you, it’ll be much easier to carry it out somehow.”

“You want us to carry a _vault_ for you,” says Beau, flatly. God, Molly’s going to owe her so much for this.

“Me and Yasha could do it, definitely,” says Jester, casually, putting her hand down on the table. “We’re stronger than all of you combined.”

“She’s not lying,” says Fjord, and Beau suppresses a giggle at the slightly haunted look on his face. No doubt he’s thinking of the Harvest Close festival.

“Where’s this warehouse?” says Yasha, all business. It’s kinda hot, actually, from where Beau’s standing.

“It’s just outside of town,” says Lestra, turning around to fetch another scroll. This one’s smaller but newer, and she opens it up to show them a map. “These are the outskirts of the lower west side of town. The warehouse is here.” She points to a large rectangle hidden behind little sad pine trees. “It’s obvious here, but it’s hidden behind some very large trees. When I had it, I etched symbols of the Changebringer into the bark of the trees to mark the way there, but I’m not sure if they’re still there or not. I’m _hoping_ there are, but if there aren’t?” She rolls the map up again, and holds it out to Beau. “You’re good at sniffing things out, you always have been. This will at least give you some idea where it is.”

“Anything else we should know about, before we start recon?” says Fjord. “Is there anyone else we can ask, who’s got info on this Rattlesnake that we could use?”

Lestra taps her fingers against the wood of the table. “You know what the funny thing about this Rattlesnake is?” she says, at last. “He just came out of _nowhere_. Oh, yeah, he has this story for the public, ‘specially the richer parts of town: scrappy orphan kid from the lower west hauling himself out of the dirt, and look at him now, with his bootstraps and his big dreams for Lynbroke. But you know what the weird thing about Rojen is?”

“What?” says Beau.

“His past is a little too good to be true,” says Lestra. “He’s even got straight A’s and B’s on his report cards, and we can’t find anything on him that’s not directly from his office, or from his mouth. Not even the best thieves and information brokers in this place can find a thread out of place in his story.”

“So maybe he’s telling the truth there,” says Yasha.

“You’ve never met a politician before, have you,” says Lestra. “Worse than fey, they are.” She sighs. “And it’s a little too convenient, that he’s an orphan. The weird thing is, no one knows _anything_ about his past beyond what he’s telling us. All the information we have about him, _he_ gave. You know how strange that is, right, when you’re an information broker, when you’re a spy? To not have information on someone’s past? To dig up _nothing at all_ that’s not from them?” She points to Jester now. “You are the first person, in a _very_ long time, to tell me anything about Rojen that he didn’t already say to the world first. Do you know anything about him or—”

“Nope,” says Jester, shaking her head. “He’s rich enough to afford to visit my mom a few times, that’s what I know, but I don’t know a lot more than that. Sorry.”

“Yeah, it’s a bit weird,” says Beau, thinking of Molly, spinning out a story for himself. He wouldn’t care, she knows, about not having information on someone’s past. He’d probably just roll his eyes at Lestra, and the hell of it is, Beau would absolutely agree with him, too. “So?”

“It’s an optional thing, of course, I know your top priority is your friend,” says Lestra, resting her elbows on the table now and giving them her best and most charming smile. Beau’s traitorous heart, the stupid thing, beats just a little bit faster against her ribcage. “But I would highly appreciate it, if you got some real information out of this whole mess back to me. Some dirt I could use on Rattlesnake, if ever the day comes that I may need it, and you helpful souls aren’t around.”

“And why should we do that for you?” says Beau.

“Because if you do, I’ll be in your debt,” says Lestra, her smile turning tight as she speaks. “I don’t have anything to offer, other than that, for information. That’s why I said it was optional.”

“Well,” says Fjord, “thanks for the information, anyway. We’ll pass on whatever we find to you, but we’re not gonna be expecting anything for it—the diamond dust you’ll be giving us once we finish the job’s more than enough payment, for us.” His hand drifts briefly up to his mouth, and Beau, on instinct by now, smacks his shoulder with the back of her palm. Fjord, very sheepishly, drops his hand. “We’re just trying to help our friend out,” he says.

“Must be an important friend,” says Lestra, “if you’re all here negotiating with me.” She’s looking right at Beau as she says this, with those eyes like green agates, shining in the candlelight. So much like the last time the two of them met, only not, because now Beau isn’t just Beau anymore, and she isn’t just here for herself.

_Fuck you, Molly._

_Fuck you, too, Beau._

“He’s very important,” says Beau, and she can’t quite keep the grief from seeping into her voice. She looks at Yasha, and it’s hard to read her face through her hair, but she doesn’t need to—Yasha’s gone so still and quiet, even moreso than usual, that Beau can already tell just how important he is.

“We want him back,” says Jester.

“Well,” says Lestra, her eyes all on Beau, her voice soft and sad and god-fucking-dammit it’s been _years_ since they last saw each other, don’t do this to her, heart, don’t you fucking _dare_ , “if you folks do my job, I can certainly help with that.”

\--

“Well, here we are, the entrance to the Lynbroke Community Library,” says Verrin, stopping in front of an arch covered with red, blue and white roses, with sprigs of lilac and lavender entwined around the arch. The roses are blooming now, and Caleb has to stop for a moment before he can step through, because he remembers this practice. They’d used to do this in Blumenthal, when he was younger: they’d twine flowers and vines together into an arch for festivals like this, and put them up to the entrance of every home to welcome visitors, and Caleb’s parents had never quite afforded something like this but theirs was always perfect, to Caleb.

He shuts his eyes, and breathes in the scent of roses and lavender. It’s not quite like what his parents’ festival arches smelled like, but it’s close enough that for a moment, he’s only a boy of ten, lighting up the arch with Dancing Lights, his father’s proud and joyful declarations echoing through the air, _look what our boy can do!_

Then Molly nudges his side, having stuck fast to his side this whole time, and Caleb opens his eyes again. He blinks, and Molly’s hand is on his cheek, turning his face a little closer towards him. Like this, he can see the faint crease of concern on Molly’s face, and for a moment he wonders why. Then Molly’s thumb brushes against his cheekbone, and he realizes—he can taste salt on his lips.

Oh.

He’d been crying, hadn’t he.

“Caleb?” says Nott, quiet, tugging on Caleb’s sleeve as Molly’s hand drops. “Are you all right?”

“ _Ja_ , I’m all right,” says Caleb, wiping at his eyes. This is embarrassing, he’s crying in front of Molly and Nott and a _stranger_ , he should really stop. He rubs his coat’s sleeve against his eyes, and sucks in a breath. Breathes out again. “We should get going. Verrin?”

“I’m not going in,” says Verrin, simply, staring out at the covered pathway leading to the entrance of the library. Roses decorate the pillars supporting the pathway’s roof, and Caleb can see the sprigs of lavender giving way to white lilies, little by little. Just beyond them is the facade of a fairly large building, an impressive marble display that Caleb half-thinks was absolutely stolen from one of Zadash’s libraries, only Zadash’s libraries didn’t have two lions sitting on either side of the doors.

“Why not?” says Nott.

“One of my fucking exes works here and I don’t feel like running into him,” says Verrin, looking straight ahead and crossing her arms, her voice dead and flat. Caleb almost believes her, honestly. “You go on ahead. I—I got some important shit to do anyway. You can find your own way back to the inn, I’m sure.”

She turns on her heel and walks off, before Nott or Caleb can say anything more. Molly seems to narrow his eyes at her, like he’s not quite sure they should be letting her go.

Then Nott says, pulling up her hood, “I’m gonna go follow her, see if she’s up to anything.”

“Please do,” says Caleb. For good measure, he snaps Frumpkin to her side. _Keep an eye on her,_ he tells Frumpkin, and gets a hum of acknowledgment across their mental bond in answer. “And, Nott, if you plan to steal anything from anyone, please be careful.”

“Don’t let them see me, got it,” says Nott, giving him a thumbs-up. “You two have fun! Oh, and Molly, if you can keep Caleb from getting almost stabbed in a library again, that would be great.” With that, she scampers off, her form shimmering slightly as she goes, her cloak becoming a cute dress and her hair going from stringy and green to curly and blonde.

Molly, still pressed into Caleb’s side, opens his mouth, then shuts it again, eyebrows furrowing together in confusion as they start to walk, past the threshold of the arch and into the fragrant, cobblestoned pathway leading up to the steps of the community library.

“ _Sag etwas,_ Mollymauk,” says Caleb, wearily, trying not to remember the last time he held someone’s voice in his hands, someone’s _freedom_. Some part of him can’t help it, though, can’t help but compare Molly to the people that Ikithon would sometimes call to help Caleb and Astrid and Eodwulf, in the latter stages of their training—glassy-eyed and dead inside, all the fight long since gone from them.

“You got stabbed in a _library_?” says Molly, and he seems happy enough just to be able to talk. It won’t last, Caleb’s certain. Some part of him very badly wants Jester to hurry up with removing the spells from Molly’s head, never mind what else happens, but he can’t quite forget the healer from the asylum: her kind smile, her bright eyes, before she’d gone mad. “When? What have I missed out on that you somehow managed to get stabbed in a _library_? That’s the one place I would never have imagined someone sneaking a knife into, I feel like someone would be incredibly annoyed about getting blood on their books.”

“The librarian was _very angry_ about me getting blood on her books, yes,” says Caleb, with a sigh. He might as well tell this story anyway, they do have to get Molly up to date with everything that’s happened. “I was not exactly the _target_ , he was really going after Fjord, as Fjord had blasted his brother into pieces just a few days ago, but he had apparently decided I was the easiest to take down. And—this is embarrassing, you’re already laughing, aren’t you?”

Molly, laughing, says, “Oh—no, I am _not_.” He giggles again, ducking his head into Caleb’s shoulder to muffle his laughter, and says, “Keep going! It’s getting interesting.”

“He found me because, by complete and utter coincidence, he worked at the same library we were doing research at,” says Caleb. “We’d been in town, oh, three days at most by that time, during which we took on a job and ended up killing a necromancer—the assassin’s brother, by the way—and we were just, um, how did Jester put it, chilling out? And I had found some books in the library that, while not _magical_ , strictly speaking, could still prove useful if ever we encountered things during our travels that were not as easily taken down as your average human thug. I was so absorbed in taking notes that—and please do not laugh, it is already embarrassing enough—I. Did not notice the very large, very heavy, and very murderous man sneaking up behind me with a kitchen knife.”

Molly breaks into a fit of giggles, gasping for air in no time as he all but collapses into Caleb’s side. Caleb has to hold him up, and that’s no easy task, considering that even somewhat thinner than usual, Molly still has more mass than he does. How he manages is a mystery for the ages, especially with Molly laughing like an asshole and not lifting a single solitary finger to help.

“Haha,” says Caleb, but he can’t stop his own smile, either. Molly’s laughing, that’s something good to have come out of that whole fiasco, at least. “Yes, very funny, I suppose. He stabbed me in the side and honestly didn’t really _do_ much damage beyond that first attack, but it was very strange and very alarming, at least until Nott stabbed him in the face.”

Molly’s laughter is only now beginning to taper off into wheezing, but his body is still shaking with laughter. Caleb doesn’t try to stop his own chuckle, this time. It is pretty funny when he looks back, and at the time he’d honestly just found it a little bit annoying. At the very least the man could’ve targeted the right party member, but no. He went after _Caleb_ , not Fjord. Gods only know why.

“And the worst part of it may not have even been the stabbing,” says Caleb, half-carrying Molly now as best as he can, half-dragging him because he’s not Yasha or Jester. “The librarian banned us from the library because we were disturbing its sanctity, never mind that we were _defending ourselves_ against one of her workers who wanted to revenge his brother upon us when we were in _another room_ at the time Fjord killed the man—she did throw him out too, by the way, she had a little bit of sense and I am thankful that she had that much because he was, clearly, not fit for working in a library, but. _Still_ , it was just—I do not know how her reasoning went, we were clearly the victims there!”

Molly pats his side, pulls on his shoulder, still shaking with laughter, and Caleb obediently comes to a stop near one of the pillars, letting Molly go so he can get the rest of the laughter out of his body while leaning against a pillar. He sits down next to Molly, mostly just because trying to half-carry, half-drag a fully-grown tiefling is incredibly hard to do, for anyone not named Yasha or Jester.

Eventually Molly’s laugh tapers off, and he’s wiping at his eyes, grinning so brightly that Caleb wonders how anyone could stand to look at Molly and not see a sun, a star, shining bright. The braid is a mess now, threatening to come loose at any moment, and for a moment Caleb wonders what it would be like, to thread his fingers through Molly’s hair and press a kiss to his lips.

He shoves the thought away. He’s a disgusting person, and his past has fucked Molly up enough. He won’t try to stain him even further.

...it’s easy enough to stick to that, when Molly’s not smiling at him. But he is, and Caleb’s voice catches in his throat, rendering him as mute as Molly in the moment.

If he leans in now, he could kiss him. Explore his lips like unmapped territory, memorize the taste of him and put it away in the back of his mind, to open up on rainy days like a painting in a locket. He could tug Molly up and into some private place, kiss him, learn him like a spell, see him smile again and again, hold the memory close to his heart.

Caleb isn’t a strong man. Has never claimed to be. He lets himself imagine it, how it would go, how good it would feel for the both of them—then lets it go. There are so many reasons why that would be such a bad idea, right now, not the least of which is that he’s essentially the one ordering Molly around. Nothing much, certainly, just prompting him to talk, but. Well. Caleb’s given orders to people like Molly before, their voices and their wills trapped under layers and layers of spells and torture and _conditioning_.

Molly’s hand, he realizes suddenly, is on his. It’s warm, warmer now than that cold, dark day on the side of Glory Run Road. He looks down, then looks up to see the concern writ large on Molly’s face, the way his lips have pressed together. Molly scoots closer, his other hand coming up to smooth Caleb’s hair back behind his ear. Caleb fancies he can see faint freckles across Molly’s face, and he knows he can see the scar across his eyebrow, the fine lines of his tattoo, see the exact shade of red of Molly’s eyes.

They’re so close.

He could kiss him.

They’re so _close._

“We should go,” he manages instead, his voice an awkward, clumsy thing. He stands up, and Molly follows after him, smoothing out the multicolored coat with a small huff. They’re not so close anymore, and Caleb tries very hard to feel thankful about that, instead of bereft. “There are books that need reading and we really have to check if the people here missed anything that could help and I think Yasha might like a book as well, something about fairytales, did she ever ask you anything about those when you were in the circus?”

“A few times,” says Molly, falling in beside him. “Although I can’t say I’ve ever heard a lot of fairytales beyond what Gustav would steal from, for the show’s narrative. The story about the serpentine sisters that Mona and Yuli portrayed, that was one of them, although that didn’t end half as happily.”

“How did it end?” says Caleb.

“They stabbed each other out of jealousy,” says Molly. “No one was very keen on that ending, it was too dark. We just cut that out and fit what we could into the show. Yasha’s collecting fairytales now?”

“Just books, but I thought she might like the stories Beau and I grew up with,” says Caleb. “Uh, the ones that weren’t about how great the Empire was and how good it would be for everyone to fall in line under it, anyway.”

Molly’s nose scrunches up in disgust, his lips peeling back in a slight snarl at the idea. Months ago, Caleb knows, he wouldn’t have had this strong a reaction, but then months ago Molly hadn’t had firsthand experience with just how far the Empire would go to make people fall in line. He’s not sure how to deal with this, but he knows Molly doesn’t _hate_ being touched, so he reaches up a hand and pats his shoulder.

Molly goes still for a second, but then relaxes into his touch, stepping closer as they walk inside.

And if Caleb steps just a little bit closer too, well, he never claimed to be strong.


	11. buckle up my old sound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from the Native Sibling's "The Fall".
> 
> tw: brief depiction of a panic attack. (" _That book_ , the one Astrid had" to "There’s a hand on his shoulder".) Molly's not having a great day, it'll likely get worse.

Nott is not _great_ with crowds. That needs to be said first. It cannot be overstated that crowds are just _terrible places to be_ , and she’s already regretting leaving Caleb alone with Molly, who’s a good guy but has a tendency to get murder-y sometimes now. Hopefully Caleb knows how to talk him down from getting murder-y at _him_ specifically, if he can get him talking with an order in Zemnian. Hopefully they can get Jester that diamond dust she needs, and _hopefully_ Jester doesn’t go crazy healing Molly, and _hopefully_ in all of that they don’t accidentally attract the Crownsguard’s attention and then also Caleb’s old friends’.

That is a lot of _hopefully_ s to hinge all of your hopes on, honestly.

Another _hopefully_ : their weird guide isn’t secretly trying to get them killed, or something. Nott is absolutely sure she is, though, and so here she is, in a crowd, trying to keep track of Verrin’s leathers and heavy footsteps and general grumbling.

Anywhere else, this wouldn’t be this hard. But half the population of Lynbroke seems convinced they’re kings and queens of the roads, not just Verrin, so more than once Nott almost loses track because someone shrieks, “The fuck?! Watch where you’re going, you shithead!” Usually at her, which is just. Terrible.

At least she’s got Frumpkin, who’s keeping much better track of Verrin than Nott is. She follows behind the orange tabby as closely as possible, and eventually they duck into an alleyway and hide in the shadows as Verrin stomps down the alley and stops in her tracks in front of a chained, locked back door, belonging to an old, run-down building that, once, might’ve belonged to a few humble little shops. Those shops have long since closed, their signs gone, and the only traces they were ever there are boarded-up windows and chains, hanging from where their signs used to be.

Verrin turns, her eyes sweeping the place. Nott presses herself flatter against the wall, behind a barrel that smells, frankly, terrible, and hugs Frumpkin tight.

She hears Verrin sigh, then turn away on her heel, but she doesn’t continue down the alleyway any further. For a moment Nott wonders what she’s going to do, because there doesn’t seem to be anything she could do to a locked and chained door. Nott pokes her head out of cover, just enough to watch, and sees Verrin suck in a breath and put her hand on the chain. No way she’s going to be able to pull that off. She seems a little scrawny under those leathers, from where she’s pulling out a small vial. She pops the cork off and tosses it back like she would a good, strong drink. Nothing seems to happen, at first, and Nott’s tempted to call it a day and head on back to Caleb, just to make sure Molly’s not accidentally killed him yet. She hopes not. She really does like Molly, and she really did miss him.

Then the veins on Verrin’s neck start to grow black, evident against her tanned skin. Nott watches one of them _pop_ , and Verrin’s eyes fly open, blood-red with black pupils.

With a growl, she snaps the chain off, then breaks the lock. She kicks the door in, and the whole thing just _gives_ , crashing down to the floor. Nott ducks behind the barrel again to hide, and scrambles around her pockets for her copper wire, before she remembers: she’s too far away. She hisses out a curse, then unceremoniously dumps Frumpkin onto the ground. The cat grumbles as he lands, but doesn’t try to claw Nott’s eye out when she crouches down.

“Go,” she whispers. “Go, tell Caleb—shit, fuck, um, tell Caleb that Verrin just showed some _freaky blood powers_. Like Molly’s? But even weirder, because Molly just makes swords glow and I guess he can also blind people and pass through shit now, but her veins turned _black_ and _she broke a chain with her bare hands_. Did you get that? Did you get that?”

Frumpkin meows, softly. She hopes that means he got that.

“Shoo!” she hisses. “Shoo, go away! Go find Caleb!”

Frumpkin goes, and Nott pokes her head back up. Verrin’s gone now, having clearly gone inside where the door used to be. Nott lets out a breath, murmurs a word, and drops her halfling disguise, her green skin and hair and yellow eyes shimmering back into existence. She tugs the hood of her cloak up and scampers past the trash and the barrels and the crates, ducking into the building.

A floorboard creaks when she steps inside the dilapidated interior. Nott hisses and jumps to another floorboard, and breathes out a sigh of relief when that one doesn’t creak. She scrambles onward, trying not to make any more noise that could possibly alert a freakishly strong woman with weird blood powers. It’s a pretty tall order, because the place is so dark and dilapidated and in disrepair that it’s a miracle Nott doesn’t fall through the floor, or something. Hell, it’s probably a miracle Verrin didn’t, either.

She runs through what she knows of Molly’s weird blood powers, which are not a _lot_ —she knows he can blind people, and she knows he can make his swords glow or make them freeze over. She knows from that awful first fight just days ago ( _days!_ ) and from Beau’s account of her own fight that Molly can make people suffer from the same kind of hurt they inflict on him, and that he can somehow move faster in the shadows now, and that he can pass through things.

Whatever Verrin’s got, though, it’s way different from Molly’s abilities. Molly’s veins don’t go black when he does his thing, Verrin’s do. Verrin doesn’t even seem to need a sword.

There’s the sound of heavy footfalls, and a quiet curse, then a resounding crash. Upstairs, Nott quickly realizes, and she hurries up the stairs, jumping over a missing stair and coming to a long hallway of doors. Her hand sneaks into her pocket for her tools, but as she keeps going she realizes, hell, she needn’t bother: apparently Verrin’s just kicked another door down. So that was what the crash was all about.

Wow. This girl really isn’t discreet.

Nott slips inside into the entranceway to the apartment proper, sees—a place that used to be a home, she realizes. It’s bare and stripped of everything that made it a home, but she sees empty picture frames, marks on the next doorframe where someone measured their growing kids’ heights, the remnants of a fireplace. She peeks around the corner, sees Verrin’s leathered backside as she’s ripping a floorboard out, again with her bare hands, again with her veins black and terrifying.

Verrin kneels down, and takes out a small pile of—papers? She shakes her head and huffs out a breath, the black veins on her neck finally receding as she sits her ass back on the floor. She unfolds a couple, reading through them, then rolls her eyes and leans back on her palms, paper crinkling under her hands.

“What the fuck are you up to, Janie?” she mutters. “Why use the old place for—whatever it is you and your mentor are up to? This doesn’t make any goddamn sense.” She looks at the papers again, frowning as she shuffles through them. “Who’s this Lucien guy? Who’s this Xhorhasian that your teacher’s teacher wants so badly?” She pauses, then chuckles, darkly. “Oh, Yonnah I recognize. Fucker. Hope you’re happy, Janie, now the guy we used to bitch about so much back in the Academy’s dead and gone. _Killed by…_ ”

She stops. Frowns.

“Fuck me,” she says.

Nott gulps, and very slowly, very deliberately, takes one step backward.

The floorboard creaks.

Fuck.

“Who’s there?” Verrin calls, and Nott has to scramble for a hiding place before Verrin can turn the corner. The only thing she finds is—ah, hell. _Fucking nowhere_. She whips around, and high-tails it towards the door, as fast as she possibly can because shit, shit, _shit_ , angry woman with weird blood powers knows she’s there, Nott’s got to get out of here _yesterday_ —

“No, you don’t!”

Just like that, Verrin’s grabbed Nott by the back of her hood and pulled her up, turned her around.

“The fuck?” says Verrin. “Seriously, the _fuck_ , you little shithead? Who put you up to this, your weird dirty hobo or the shitty blood hunter tiefling?”

Nott makes a small, high-pitched noise, not unlike a scream. She swears she can see the black veins creeping up Verrin’s neck again, and so she does the only thing she can do: she grabs Verrin’s arm and casts Shocking Grasp, tightening her grip as painfully as possible for the most impact.

It works. Verrin shrieks, letting go of her as lightning discharges directly into her skin, and Nott drops to the ground and scrambles towards the door. She all but _leaps_ down the stairs, managing to stick the landing, and then runs as fast as she can for the door.

The hell of it is, she almost makes it there.

Then Verrin grabs her by the scruff again and says, “You better start explaining what the fuck you were doing _following me_ , or I swear to god, I don’t care how much your friends are paying me, I don’t care who you managed to kill, I’m going to throw you out the highest _fucking_ window of Lady Margaret’s Hall, do you fucking _understand me_?!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I was curious!” says Nott, hoping to god her lying passes. For good measure, she flashes Verrin a grin. Judging from how Verrin recoils, that probably didn’t work out. Damn it. She really hates these teeth, these hands, these _eyes_. “I’m sorry, please don’t throw me out a window, _who’s Janie?_ ”

“You heard that?” says Verrin.

“I’m very good at hiding, yes, I heard it!” says Nott, kicking futilely at the air. “Please put me down. On the floor. Gently. Please. I don’t want to get thrown out a window. I swear I was just—I just followed you because you were so _weird_ , I thought, maybe, you were kind of interesting?”

“Your buddies said to follow me, didn’t they?” says Verrin, unimpressed.

Damn it. “It was all my idea, and not theirs,” Nott lies, straight through her teeth. “They like you a lot. They really do!”

“Your friend Mollymauk watches me like he thinks I’m going to turn around and murder you all,” says Verrin. “You know what they call that kind of thing? _Paranoia_. You also know what they also call following somebody all the way to their childhood home and eavesdropping on them talking to themselves? _Stalking_. Why shouldn’t I throw you out that window again?”

“We’re working the same case!” Nott blurts out. “Just from different angles.”

“I’m sorry,” says Verrin, scowling now, “what case? There is _no_ case, you’re just delusional.”

“Oh, yes, there is,” says Nott. “We killed Yonnah. We might have some idea what this Janie of yours is up to. And we definitely know who Astrid is.”

The last one is a gamble, but it’s one that lands, because Verrin’s eyes widen just slightly enough for Nott to know that now she’s interested. Sure enough, the bigger woman puts her down on the floor—not _very_ gently, granted, and really it’s more like she just drops Nott right onto the floor, but that’s fine, Nott’s had worse falls than that.

“All right,” says Verrin, crouching down in front of her, a fire in her eyes that Nott has never seen in her before. “Talk.”

\--

The community library is Caleb’s heaven, from the moment they sign their names onto the guestbook and step into the main hall of the library.

At least, Molly’s pretty sure it’s Caleb’s heaven, judging from how his eyes grow wide and his entire face seems to just light up from the inside. It makes him look so much younger for just a moment, the years melting off his face and the sheer delight making his blue eyes shine bright. It’s like looking at a star, Molly thinks, and not for the first time he’s baffled Caleb would try to snuff out his own light, hide it under grime and dirt and soot.

Maybe less so now than before, though. Now he has firsthand experience.

He tugs his coat closer around himself, absently, and follows in Caleb’s tracks as Caleb counts the books he takes off the shelves, _one two three four five six_ and so on and so forth. By the time they’ve found a table Molly’s carrying half the stack, and Caleb is clearly just a hair’s breadth away from floating into the sky out of sheer delight.

Mostly, Molly’s just glad Caleb’s happy. Between the two of them, this is much more Caleb’s territory than Molly’s. No one really asked Molly to do a lot of _reading_ or even _writing_ in the circus, and while he’s figured out the basics with either help or on his own, the more advanced stuff is pretty much lost on him. Like punctuation, and syntax.

He’s probably going to have to learn that, he supposes, if he’s going to be communicating via writing for a while without Caleb around. He’d always relied more on his speech than his pen, but now he doesn’t have the former, so the latter it is.

When they find a table and sit down, he grabs a book at random and opens it up. _Whitestone’s Pride,_ the title page reads, which seems promising until he hits the first chapter and squints. No one’s name could possibly be _that_ long, and no one should be allowed to write paragraphs so long that they take up about half the page. He only manages to make it through the first ten pages before he shuts the book and pushes it away, head beginning to ache from barely being able to understand about one in ten words.

Caleb glances up. Somehow he’s halfway through his book already. “Is there something wrong, Mollymauk?” he asks.

“Did you find anything yet?” says Molly.

“Uh, no, not yet,” says Caleb. “But I will let you know once I do, if ever I do. This book doesn’t have much information on mind control that isn’t speculative or downright falsehood, though, I’m sorry.”

Molly sighs, and takes his cards out instead and shuffles them, reshuffles. Muscle memory soon takes over, and Molly lets his mind wander off while he’s playing around with his tarot cards.

He’d drawn Death, the last time he’d done this. He’d done it four times, right in front of Beau, and each time he’d felt as if his heart could stop right then and there just from the sight of it. Death isn’t—Death generally just _looks_ like a scary card, but ultimately it’s just something that heralds a significant end, a metaphorical death. But drawing it four times in a row, that means something. What it is, he isn’t sure what—the cards aren’t exactly polite enough to tell him for sure. They aren’t even polite enough to tell him when it is, or if it’s already happened.

He’s hoping it’s the latter. He did die, that’s a pretty significant end. But if he’s being honest with himself, he’s not entirely sure of that.

Shuffle, reshuffle. Cut the cards just like this, yeah, that way, MT, and then you lay ‘em out like _this_ and you spin that bullshit and make it look like sun-touched gold. Shuffle, reshuffle. The Moon’s face appears, and Molly draws the card out of his deck, stares down at it, lets out a breath. What does the Moonweaver want, he wonders. Are they still okay? What should he say, the next time he can talk to her, _hi, it’s Molly, sorry I’m about seven months late but I have a brilliant excuse and a very good story_? That’s such a bad idea. It’s not even a good story, it’s just one shit thing after another.

He sighs, and slides the card back in. Shuffle, reshuffle. If he keeps his hands busy he won’t have to think about what else this body’s done in those seven months, who else was steering the horses, as it were. Not Molly, that’s for certain, not Mollymauk Tealeaf, member of the Mighty Nein, former carnie. Definitely not that Lucien asshole.

Something stirs in the back of his head, a faint memory. Molly’s hands go still, and he puts the cards down as the headache starts to build behind his eyes. He closes them and rubs a hand against his temples, and in the distance he thinks he can hear—a woman’s voice?

_For the last time, don’t tell me about your fucking destiny, Lu—fine, yes, Nonagon._

Molly scrapes his chair back, his stomach churning with nausea, his throat growing tight. Oh. Oh, no. Jester had said she’d taken care of one modified memory, hadn’t she, but that means there’s others, and that means this is one and that means—

“Mollymauk?” Caleb’s voice breaks in, and Molly blinks through a pain-filled haze. “Are you all right?”

Molly huffs out a breath. “Caleb,” he manages to rasp, the panic starting to claw at his chest. Later, later, time for this later, time to have a nervous breakdown when he’s not in a fucking library later. “I’m—I’m fine. Just a headache, that’s all.”

“I can take you outside, if you need fresh air,” Caleb offers. “Or—water, my mother always had water, um— _sag etwas_ , Mollymauk.”

“Caleb, I’m _fine_ ,” says Molly, gently prying Caleb’s hand off his shoulder. He isn’t fine. His head is killing him and he’s pretty sure he’s _hearing things_ , like the sound of his own voice, but colder and crueler, responding to the woman from before. Something about destiny? Why’d he been so obsessed with that? (There’s an irony, he’s certain, to the fortune teller thinking that.) “You don’t need to do anything right now, although I think now that you’ve offered I’ll just take that fresh air. There’s just so much— _dust_ in here, it must be all these old books.”

Caleb raises an eyebrow at him, giving him a Look. It’s the one that says _you are so full of shit that you’re insulting both of our intelligences but honestly I’m too fucking worried right now, so I’ll let this slide this once_. Molly has become an expert in Looks, over the past few years since he woke up. “Do you want some company?” Caleb says instead.

He should say no, probably. He’s too damn tired to. “Yes,” he says, quietly glad for the geas spell not kicking in. “That—That’d be good. If you don’t mind.”

“Eh, I can finish my reading outside,” says Caleb, grabbing some of the books. Molly stands up, and leans a little more onto Caleb than he maybe ought to, considering Caleb is a scrawny wizard who hasn’t seen a good meal in weeks at least. That’s fine. Honestly, Molly himself has only really been having good meals for the past few days now. “Is this common with you? These headaches?”

“They aren’t with you?” says Molly.

“I used to have them all the time, actually,” says Caleb. “Not as much anymore. I still get them if someone hits my head too hard but otherwise I am headache-free. Why ask?”

“I don’t know, I figured it was a side effect of something in this—thing,” says Molly, gesturing helplessly to his head, indicating the magic digging its claws in. Painfully, at the moment, because he screws his eyes shut at the stab of pain that lances through his skull. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. “You’re the expert here. I defer to your more experienced voice.”

“I don’t,” starts Caleb, then he sighs, and Molly feels Caleb shift around a little bit. His arm gets lifted up and over Caleb’s shoulders. Caleb’s arm snakes around his torso to hold him close, and Molly’s heart somehow finds the time to skip a beat in simple delight despite everything else going on. “I wouldn’t consider myself an expert.”

Molly opens his mouth, but the geas kicks in again, so he shuts it. A shame. He’d had a good comment ready to go, but instead he settles for giving Caleb his best bleary-eyed glare, because how dare he argue with Molly on this.

His head pounds. He shuts his eyes and does his best to walk anyway, even leaning against Caleb.

He knows it the moment they step out of the library and into the sunlight. Much warmer, for one thing, and the air is just a little more fragrant than before, the scent of roses and lavender drifting through the air. Molly opens his eyes and sees a veritable garden, with people milling about and chatting to each other, large trees arranged in a semicircle, benches laid out under the trees.

Caleb half-drags Molly over to one of the benches, even though Molly’s honestly doing his best to at least walk under most of his own power. They sit down together, and Molly shuts his eyes and leans against Caleb, trying to breathe through the headache.

A whisper on the edge of his hearing, a voice like his except not: _The book first, spellslinger. Then I’ll tell you what you want to know. But I want that book first._

 _That book_ , the one Astrid had, the one that fucking asshole killed himself over—

Molly sucks in a breath, but it doesn’t quite make it in. Tries another, another, another, but his throat has closed up and he can’t quite breathe right and his head hurts so badly he can’t even think and _breathe_ but he can’t and something is clawing at his throat trying to get out his heart is beating hard and fast and he can’t _breathe right_ oh god he doesn’t want to die he doesn’t want to—

“—with me, Mollymauk? Just breathe with me, there we go.”

Someone breathes, slow and deliberate. He follows, trying to match them, trying to breathe. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. _Breathe._

There’s a hand on his shoulder, there’s a hand smoothing his hair back from his face, thumb brushing against his cheek. Mollymauk, that’s him. Mollymauk Tealeaf, _Molly to my friends_. No one else, no matter what anyone says.

“Can you hear me?”

He nods, and opens his eyes. Caleb is looking at him, close enough to kiss if he wants to, close enough to see the concern on his face.

“All right,” says Caleb, sighing, relieved. “I can go see if they have some water here, if you want. You look as though you’ll need some.”

Water is a good idea, isn’t it. Molly still feels like someone just pounded their warhammer through his head, still feels like spun glass ready to break at any moment. Some water would help in that, he’s sure. At the very least he wouldn’t be thirsty, and his throat wouldn’t hurt half as much.

But he doesn’t want to be alone, just right now. There’s a tiny little part of him that’s still trapped in that small stone cell, that doesn’t want to stop touching Caleb because that means this is _real_ , that means he isn’t alone.

“What do you think, Mollymauk?”

“Take me with you,” says Molly, making up his mind. His hand slips into his coat, and there are his cards.

Caleb nods, and stands up. He holds his hand out for Molly to take.

Molly takes it, and it’s warm against his, and he could fool himself, almost, maybe, into believing they’re not here for a reason. Into thinking Caleb just pulled him here because he wanted to, not just because they need to do research on the spells in Molly’s head, not just because Molly can’t be left alone.

It’s a nice little fantasy, anyway, and Molly lets himself indulge a little in it as Caleb pulls him towards the inside of the library again. Then, reluctantly, he lets it go.

They’ve got bigger fish to fry right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> will be slowing down updates to a Wednesday schedule before new episodes on Thursday, hopefully. RL despises me.


	12. feel the light start to tremble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from OneRepublic's "If I Lose Myself".

Frumpkin comes back to Caleb after Molly’s finished a glass of water, in one of the library’s back rooms. Caleb knows because he feels the bond between them start to pulse again, the way it does when Frumpkin comes back to his side after some time spent away, and it takes only the work of a snap of his finger to pull Frumpkin back into his arms and cuddle up with him.

Frumpkin purrs, contented. Then he passes along the memory of Nott shooing him away, whispering, _did you get that, shoo, get Caleb_ , and oh. _Scheiße._

Molly ambles back up to him, and leans over to scratch Frumpkin behind his ears. There’s a small smile on his face, and Frumpkin meows at him. “He likes you,” says Caleb, adjusting his grip on his cat to let him scramble up onto his shoulders.

Molly grins at him, pleased by the idea of having gained Frumpkin’s approval, and gives the cat a thumbs-up. Then he glances around, and the grin fades, the space between his eyebrows starting to crease in worry—Nott isn’t here. He looks back at Caleb, and jerks a thumb towards the window, like he’s wondering if Nott will come crashing through at any moment.

Caleb shakes his head, and says, “She was following after Verrin into—a very old house, I believe, and she’d said she saw her activating abilities like yours.”

Molly goes still, then. Caleb can’t blame him, the last time Molly met anyone with abilities like his, it had been Cree, and she’d called him a name he didn’t want. The last time any of them had met anyone else with abilities like Molly’s, it had been in the Run, and they’d been trying so _hard_ to resurrect Molly, find a cleric and some diamonds and scrape together some horses so they could ride back out to his grave. Fat lot of good all that hurry did for them, and for Molly. If they’d been _faster_ —oh, god, they still need to find Nott, what if she’s hurt by this person they’re paying, what if—

A hand grabs his wrist, pulls him towards the doors before Caleb can quite register what’s going on. Molly sets a fast pace when he wants to, Caleb realizes, and it’s all he can do to keep up, startled as he had been out of his thoughts. They step around a woman pushing a cart of books down the corridor, and Molly snaps off a lazy wave goodbye and a grin to the woman at the entrance, before they’re back down the stairs, down the pathway, out the arch, and back out onto the street.

“What,” Caleb starts. “Mollymauk, slow _down_ —”

Molly stops and shakes his head, spinning back and forth on his heels as if looking for Nott. His fingers twitch towards where his swords usually would be, only they hadn’t given him any swords, had they. That may not have been the wisest decision, Caleb thinks, because now Nott’s missing and the only person between him and Molly who can feasibly defend themselves is, fuck, _Caleb_. “ _Scheiße,_ ” he mutters, digging a hand into his pockets and searching for something—no, that’s molasses, no, that’s licorice root, no, that’s cotton—there they go, fur of a bloodhound. “I need you to get me two minutes alone in an alleyway, _bitte_ , Mollymauk,” he says.

Molly nods, expression tight with worry. He places his hand on the small of Caleb’s back, and Caleb tries very hard not to put any more thought into that gesture beyond simply letting Molly steer him into a nearby alleyway. He’s certainly not going to let himself think of how warm Molly’s hand is on his back, how close they are.

As soon as they’re in an alleyway, Caleb presses himself flat against the wall and pulls the fur out of his pockets, Frumpkin winding around Molly’s ankles as Molly stands guard at the alleyway’s mouth. He makes the gestures, recites the words for the location spell, and concentrates on Nott—the closest person he has in his life to a sister, certainly the best thing to have ever happened to him in years besides Frumpkin. _These will protect you,_ she had said once, threading flowers into his hair, and it had sounded like a superstition, a myth, the kind of thing Ikithon would’ve scoffed at and called an idiotic belief, an emotional crutch Caleb didn’t need.

But coming from Nott, he believes her, when she says they’ll keep him safe. He believes her, when she says she’ll stay by his side, no matter what.

She needs to be safe. He has to find her and keep her safe, because she is his friend.

Something _pings_ on the edge of the spell. Southwest, Caleb realizes quickly, and moving fast towards their direction.

He shakes himself out of a trance, keeping his concentration on the spell. He taps Molly on the shoulder and says, “She’s southwest, coming towards us. That way—we can meet her halfway.”

Molly nods, and gestures for Caleb to lead the way. Caleb huffs out a breath, and puts his hand on Molly’s arm and tugs him along, gently, but still fast enough that they can step around Lynbroke’s ruder locals with minimal fuss. Frumpkin keeps pace with them, ducking around wayward feet with the practiced ease of a street cat. Nott is drawing closer, Caleb can sense her now, turning around corners and scampering down shortcuts.

He whips around a corner—

“Caleb!” calls Nott, mercifully unharmed.

Caleb breathes a sigh of relief. So does Molly, beside him, all the tension bleeding out of his shoulders as Nott runs up to them.

“You’re both fucking dicks,” Verrin informs them, stomping up behind Nott with a thunderous look on her face. Her hands are stuffed into her pockets, which instantly puts Caleb back on edge. “ _Fucking_ dicks. You put her up to this, didn’t you?”

“It was my idea,” says Caleb. “I apologize, but I did say we were assholes. We have been fucked over in the past, and I thought it would be better to be safe than sorry.”

“I can’t fucking _believe you_ ,” snaps Verrin. She steps closer to Caleb, as if ready to launch her fist at him, but Molly steps closer too, ready to put himself in between her and Caleb if possible. Nott’s hand drifts to the handle of her crossbow, ready to draw and fire. Verrin looks at the two of them, then very deliberately takes a step back. “Your friend here,” she says, “told me something interesting. She said you guys knew something about—a friend’s mentor, who’s been doing some shit, lately.”

“Oh?” says Caleb.

“You know a woman named Astrid, by any chance?” says Verrin, looking between the two of them, and Astrid’s name from this half-drunk woman’s mouth lands like a punch to Caleb’s gut. He imagines it’s worse for Molly, who’s turned pale. “Wow, okay, you definitely do. She’s—a mentor for a friend of mine, who went missing some time back. I’m trying to find that friend of mine, because fuck knows what Astrid’s doing to her.”

“I do know her,” says Caleb, distantly. “We, ah, used to be friends, Astrid and I. But I never knew she was mentoring anyone.”

“It started a year ago,” says Verrin, simply, and right—Caleb had long since left the asylum, by then, and started traveling with Nott. “My friend and—My friend considered it an honor, to be handpicked.” A ghost of a smile touches her lips, and Caleb wonders suddenly who else might’ve considered it an honor, if he’s looking at someone else dragged in and spat out by the Academy, brilliant and shining light smothered with blood and darkness. “Found out it wasn’t.”

They’d all been so sure, hadn’t they.

“Have you spoken to your friend lately?” he asks.

“Not in months,” says Verrin, and Caleb gets the sense she’s holding something back. Actually, she’s holding a lot of things back, still cagey enough to guard the finer details of her own entanglement with Astrid, but he can tell she wants the information they could give her. “Not after—god, I don’t know, it’s been a long fucking while. Her graduation should be coming up in a couple of months, and I know they send their students back for vacations before then. I thought I could find her.” She shifts from one foot to the other, and says, simply, “Instead I found your little friend here. She sucks at being discreet, by the way.”

“You caught me on an off day,” huffs Nott.

Caleb licks his lips, looks at Molly. “Do you want to tell her, Mollymauk?” he asks.

Molly huffs out a breath, and says to Verrin, “I, ah. I used to work for her. _Terrible_ employer, her standards were too high to meet.” There’s a strain to his smile, like this is the kind of thing he’d much rather _not_ dwell on, but he continues on anyway. “Your friend—I might know her, but I can’t say for sure. Like I said, Astrid was a terrible employer, we didn’t get much of a chance to talk, gossip, trade names.”

“Yeah, torture and murder take up way too much time, I guess,” says Verrin, watching Molly like a hawk, and Caleb hopes that her attention being all on Molly means she doesn’t notice Caleb going still as the words sink in, the implications of Verrin’s own entanglement with Astrid. “My friend’s blonde, short, pale as your buddy here is. She was learning how to heal people for the war effort, when I last saw her.”

“And when was that?” says Caleb.

“Just eight months ago,” says Verrin, eyes flicking to him, and Caleb does the math—she should be coming home sometime soon, before she graduates. And if what he remembers still stands up, she’ll find out one night that someone she loves is conspiring against the Empire, and she’ll feel sick to her core, and she’ll choose to do what she’s been taught, what she’s been trained to do. No sacrifice is too great for the Empire. “We had a falling-out. I found something out about her mentor, she wouldn’t hear of it.” Her mouth twitches upward, settles into something more pensive as she looks away. “But despite that, she’s still my—my friend. Don’t have a lot of those.”

“Wonder why,” Nott mutters.

“Shut up, tiny,” says Verrin. “Listen, I, frankly, still don’t give a shit what the fuck you guys are up to with Rattlesnake, and Lestra, and whatever the fuck is going on with you. You couldn’t pay me enough to care. But I want my s—I want my friend back. So.” She shifts her weight again, from one foot to the other. “I’ll trade you info. Tell me about her or Astrid, and I’ll answer one question as honestly as possible. _One_.”

“How’ll we know it’s honest?” Nott asks.

“Cast a spell on me,” says Verrin, after a moment, with a grimace, every word dragged out from behind her teeth. “Suggestion, Charm Person, whichever, _fine_. Just. Cast a damn spell if you’ll feel better. Just give me something _back_.” Her voice breaks, and she shakes her head, bites her lip.

Caleb sighs. “I suggest,” he says, swiping sweet oil over his bottom lip, pushing magic into his voice, “that you tell us the truth.”

Verrin shivers as the spell settles in, her dark eyes flicking between him and Molly and Nott. “So,” she says. “Well?”

“I don’t have any questions,” says Caleb, deciding to save his questions for later, for when he can catch Verrin alone again, without Molly around, “but I think Mollymauk does. Do you?”

Molly huffs out a breath, rocking back and forth on his heels. His face has gone carefully neutral and blank, but his hands are shaking badly enough that after a moment, he sticks them in his pockets. “I find it a bit strange that you’re not a big fan of my weird blood powers when you’ve got them too,” he says. “How’d you get yours?”

“These,” says Verrin, pulling out vials of black liquid from her pockets. “I don’t use them a lot anymore, but they’re—potions, I guess. Alchemical shit I put together to give myself a boost when I need to.” She puts them back inside and says, “It’s one of the reasons me and my friend fell out, this whole blood hunter thing. I joined an order, ‘cause I thought—fuck, I dunno, I was a stupid kid, I wanted to _help_ somehow.”

“With weird blood powers?” says Nott, incredulously.

“I was a _very stupid_ kid,” says Verrin. “I drank a potion, I got a lot more sensitive to some fucked-up bullshit, because I was dumb enough to think that I could _help_ , somehow, help fight off some of the fucked-up shit that could come her way. Because I thought I could relieve her burden, just a little bit, the way she used to for me.” She shrugs, and says, “Fat lot of good that did. Now I’m a freak and god only knows what the fuck her teacher’s making her do.”

She’d been sure. Caleb had been sure too, had been _so sure_. But he’d broken, and looking at Verrin, he’s sure he can see the cracks in her, too, the jagged edges where that helpful girl, that “stupid kid” broke.

“Now your turn,” says Verrin, starting forward towards Molly, fists clenching and unclenching. “My friend, Janie. Janille. Have you seen her? Did anything happen to her? Is she okay? You—You used to work for Astrid, you said, you _said_ , did you see Janie? Did you talk to her? Don’t—Don’t just _look at me_ like that, you’ve gotta tell me, you have to say fucking _something_ —”

“ _Sag etwas,_ Mollymauk,” Caleb murmurs, hoping only Molly can catch it. They’re already giving too much away to this stranger, even couching it in the vaguest terms possible. He knows that the Mighty Nein has become—helpful, apparently, and kind, and the sort of people who would help small children in need, but Verrin is the furthest thing from a small child, and a danger by herself. She doesn’t need to know more.

Molly huffs out a breath and says, “She’s the blonde one, isn’t she? Yes, I believe I’ve seen her around, helping smoke out suspected traitors.” The moment the word (Trent’s word, Astrid’s word, the Empire’s word) leaves his mouth, Caleb sees Molly frown, shake his head as if trying to clear out the Empire’s influence on his head, on his words. “Emphasis on _suspected_ , if you ask me, I think some of them were framed. But about your friend—the last time I saw her, she was, ah, helping with the aftermath of some interrogations.”

Verrin steps back, and says, “Fuck.” She runs her shaking hand through her wild hair, and says, with more feeling, “ _Fuck_.”

“Yeah, that’s about how we’re feeling about this too,” says Nott. “But I saw you rooting around in an apartment and getting papers—how’d you know to find those if you hadn’t kept in touch with her?”

“I said _one question_ and your buddy blew it on blood hunter shit,” huffs Verrin. “No freebies. You people know too much already.” She turns on her heel, as if to walk off, then pauses and turns back. “We grew up together,” she says, simply. “We had hiding places. I figured she’d fall back on some old ones.”

Then she turns on her heel and walks away.

“Well,” says Nott, “that—turned out _much_ worse than I thought.” She whips around to Molly, who’s tugged his coat tighter around himself, and says, “Was that what you were _doing_ for the past seven months, almost? Are there _more_ like you?”

Molly nods, still staring after Verrin, before he hunches further into the coat.

“There always were,” says Caleb, distantly. “Sometimes someone who was part of a rebellion showed an extraordinary amount of skill at something, or a skill that you just couldn’t drill into the warmages you were training.” He looks down at his hands, and breathes slowly out. “So they were—shown mercy, you could say. We would see them, sometimes, and they never—they never lasted very long. Eodwulf used to call them _die lebenden Toten_ , because it seemed as if they had died in all but the physical sense.” But they’d used them all the same, because better those walking corpses than the spellcasters with something to prove, lives to live, graduations to reach.

Caleb hadn’t given them much thought, when he was younger. He’d used them when he needed to, when tracking down a traitor for execution required more finesse and skill than three apprentices had. He’d thought—well, they deserved it, certainly. He’d thought it was _merciful_.

Molly huffs out a short, half-hysterical laugh, trying to retreat further into his coat, slumping down the wall of the alley and curling into an overwhelmed ball. Caleb thinks: there’s nothing merciful about this, and he can’t think of anyone who deserves it less than Molly does.

Nott gets to Molly first before Caleb does, this time, scampering up in front of him and tapping his knee. He blinks at her—he’s still there, so that’s good. Caleb kneels down just behind Nott, so Molly can keep him in sight, and sends Frumpkin to gently headbutt his flank.

“Hey, you with us?” says Nott.

Molly nods, a little, after a moment. There’s nothing dead about the spark in his eyes, as much as Astrid and Ikithon may have tried, and some part of Caleb is selfishly glad that his past hadn’t been able to smother Molly so completely.

“Okay,” says Nott, relaxing, her hand still on Molly’s knee, like she’s grounding him out. “Good. You wanna get out of here? I wanna get out of here. Caleb?” Gleaming yellow eyes and solid red eyes turn to look at him, and Caleb swallows.

“I’ve something to do,” he says. There is a woman who knows far more than she’s letting on, and this is—personal, now. Even more than it had been before. And Nott and Molly are good people, better than Caleb could ever hope to be, better people than Caleb deserves on his side. They don’t have to be there, they don’t need to be dragged further into Caleb’s darkness. “But I’ll catch up with you at the inn, _ja_?”

Molly, beginning to slowly stagger to his feet, makes a face and flaps a hand in one direction, then another. He pauses a moment like he’s trying to figure out some way to mime what else he wants to say, then prods Nott and mimes drawing back a bowstring and releasing. Then he shakes his hands out in an arc, like a celebration.

“What, you wanna try out the festival?” says Nott, nose wrinkling up at Molly, who’s dusting off his coat now, fixing his collar. “You had two panic attacks in _one morning_ , you’re sure you’re up for that?”

Molly nods, almost frantic in how quick it is.

Nott glances at Caleb, and Caleb sticks his hands back into his pockets, runs a thumb over the bloodhound’s fur. He hasn’t burned a lot of spells today, just the Locate Creature for Nott, he can cast twice more if he needs to. And there’s always Frumpkin.

 _Go with them,_ he tells Frumpkin, and the cat curls around Molly’s ankles in acknowledgment. _Mollymauk likes having you around._

Frumpkin meows, and Molly smiles down at him, bends down to scratch lightly behind his ears. Then he straightens back up and looks, curiously, at Caleb.

“I’ll find you,” says Caleb. “Go, have fun. I’ll catch up with you.”

“All right, and I’ll keep an eye on Molly,” says Nott, “but be careful, Caleb.”

Molly traces the shape of a heart over his clavicle. Caleb’s hand goes up to the periapt, sitting over his shirt, and the soft warmth of the necklace pulses in his grasp. He thinks he understands what Molly means— _be careful._

He nods back, and Molly takes Nott’s hand. The two of them, with Frumpkin following behind them, walk out of the alleyway, into the light of day.

Caleb tugs his hood up, and turns. He walks further into the darkness.

\--

Turns out, Molly-sitting in the middle of a festival is kind of like trying to wrangle a large, very excited sheepdog. Which Nott knows because she had to wrangle a sheepdog one time, back in the days when her job was distracting scary animals with teeth from the other members of her clan. She didn’t last long in that job, she’d been so bad at it.

Molly-sitting’s turning out a little bit better than that, at least. Molly’s not trying to bite her in half like the dog did, and he’s not trying to run her through like he almost did in that fight, days ago. Mostly he just takes her places that _look_ interesting, excitedly waving a hand at tapestries and blankets and everything that looks even vaguely shiny.

She lifts a couple of trinkets for herself, just to satisfy her Itch. He helps, just by being so expressive and bombastic even without speaking that the people who’re selling pay more attention to him than to the little maybe-halfling girl taking whatever looks shiniest off their displays.

He’s not _Caleb_ , but it’s good to have Molly back, and watching her back. Even if he’d been something of an arrogant purple asshole, sometimes.

Eventually they end up, ah, _involuntarily leaving_ a stall, is how Nott will tell it later. Not even for anything either of them have done, but mostly just because Molly’s flashy and purple and Nott’s small and green, and neither of them look human enough for the stall-owner’s tastes to stay for very long. Which, wow, racist, and for that Nott steals four charms, a couple of bracers and an ornamental dagger.

“I got you something,” she says to Molly as they move through the crowd towards a relatively less crowded stall, selling apple pies.

He tilts his head towards her, interested. The sunlight glints off the lone moon charm he got off Jester. It looks weird, really, seeing him without half a ton of shiny stuff dangling from his horns, and while it’s probably lighter now, he seemed to _like_ being shiny. She doesn’t think he got to be, in the past seven months. She doesn’t think he got to be a lot of things he likes.

She digs one of the charms out of her pockets, a small ivory crown embedded with little rubies and sapphires. Not worth very much, she’s certain, but Molly’s eyes get a little bit wider, like he’s surprised she stole him something. “Bend down, I’ll stick this through your horn,” she says, showing him the charm, and with a surprised smile, he complies. “Where do you want it?” she asks.

He points at one of the holes drilled in through one of his horns, and she obliges, tying the chain through the hole and securing it with practiced ease brought about by sleepovers with Jester. It looks pretty on him, and a ghost of his old smile touches his mouth. He reaches out a hand to ruffle her hair.

“Hey!” huffs Nott, but, yep, it’s happened, he’s ruffled her hair with an indulgent grin. Asshole. She smacks his wrist with a hiss, and he draws it back now, but his tail’s flicking lazily about as he stands. He’s going to do it again.

He reaches down for her hand, and leads her towards the apple pies. She’s still got plenty of gold in her pockets, and enough of it is in a coin purse that was stolen three towns away from this one, so she doesn’t feel any trepidation about tugging it out while Molly’s playing charades with the baker. Two coppers for each slice of apple pie, wasn’t it? Then she remembers that this is Molly, and he’ll want to pay way too much for apple pie. Well, she hopes a silver is more than enough for him, so she tosses him a silver coin.

He catches it out of the air with a deftness that surprises her, and even does a trick with it where he pretends to pull it out of the baker’s ear. They laugh, and hand over the slices with a bright and cheery grin. “Have a very happy festival,” they say, and Molly lifts up one of the slices in acknowledgment before he spins back to Nott, grinning wide.

“They can’t be that good,” she says to him, as they walk away from the stall. A dwarf bumps into her and lets out a loud curse about _some fucking idiot tourists_ , then trails off as he looks up at Molly, who’s narrowed his eyes at him. She slips the dwarf’s coin purse off his belt as Molly looms, then tugs on Molly’s arm.

They walk away, and she takes a bite out of her apple pie. Her—oh gods this is _such a good pie_.

“I take it back,” she says, in a small voice.

Molly snickers, as Frumpkin rubs up against his ankles. He’s keeping his tail well away from Frumpkin right now, but otherwise he doesn’t seem to mind having Caleb’s cat around him.

“Don’t _you_ talk, you always overpay,” Nott grumbles. “I notice! Noticed. Notice?” Tenses are strange, when talking about a friend who’s been dead and then come back, and that’s without dragging in Molly’s murky activities for the past seven months. “Whatever, you know what I mean.”

Molly doesn’t say anything, just takes a bite out of his apple pie. Nott wishes he’d say something, because it’s weird, not hearing his bullshit coming out of his mouth, not hearing some wise advice out of him. He taps her shoulder and points to an empty bench.

“Yeah, my feet are killing me too,” she concedes, and guides him over to the bench. She hops up, and takes a bite, watching the people rush by in colorful outfits. Not a lot of tieflings, though. Or goblins.

Frumpkin hops onto Molly’s lap, as he’s eating his apple pie, and irritably meows as pie crumbs fall into his fur. Molly swallows, chuckles softly, and starts brushing the pie crumbs out of Frumpkin’s fur.

“You’re gonna get cat hair all over your pie,” says Nott. Her mouth is full of pie, though, so it comes out a muffled _y’gonna ge’ca’hair all’ver y’pie_.

Molly brushes his hand off on his shirt, and takes another bite of his pie. His eyes do slide over to her, like he really can’t believe she said that, of _all people_ , and all right. Maybe he’s got a point, but cat hair doesn’t belong on pie, so she’ll stick by what she said.

She waits till he’s looked away, finished off his pie, and started petting Frumpkin, before she says, quiet, “I’m glad you’re happy again.”

Molly’s hands go still, and Frumpkin meows inquisitively in his hands, squirms around like he’s not sure what just happened to stop the petting. He looks at Nott again, opens his mouth like he wants to say something, then closes it again. He gently puts Frumpkin to the side, and pulls the notebook and pencil out of his coat.

Nott takes another bite, swallows, and says, “You were—pretty bad, when we saw you. Really fucked up. I think you were scared, really, more than anything.” She looks up at him. “I know what it looks like when someone’s so scared they’ll do anything to _not_ have some bad thing happen to them. I used to be there. Caleb was there, in prison, when we met—he was just a scared little boy in rags in the corner of the cell.” She scoots closer, rests her hand over his as his pencil is hovering over his notebook. He doesn’t jerk it away, so she thinks he’s at least listening to her, even though his expression right now is hard to read. “For a little while I didn’t know if you were ever going to be happy again. I didn’t even know if you could be saved. But when you got your coat back, I saw—well, I saw you again. And that’s who I’ve been seeing over the past few days.”

Molly blinks slowly at her, then looks down at their joined hands, at his coat’s sleeve.

“And you’re happier now, and we missed you,” she says. “I mean, okay, so this whole situation isn’t totally ideal, I definitely don’t like the risk that you’ll suddenly snap and try to kill us all—”

Molly nods, frowning. He scribbles something down, and shows it to her: _dont want to kill you to._

“Oh, good, at least we’re on the same page,” says Nott. “But I’m glad you’re back, and I’m glad you’re happy again. We—I really missed you, you know. A lot more than I honestly thought I would.”

He licks his lips, and scribbles something down again. _I think I missed you to,_ he writes. _Id be happyer w/o magic traps in my hed but Ill take this for a bit. Im ok w this._ Then he pauses and crosses the last part out.

“We’ll fix that,” says Nott. “We’ll find a way. Somehow.” They’ll find the diamond dust, and things will be okay again. She has to believe that. “But, you know, at least you’re not _dead_.”

Molly actually laughs, a little, but there’s a slightly hysterical edge to it that says he _really_ doesn’t like remembering it. Nott doesn’t like remembering it either, it had been a terrible, awful time. Even worse when they got to his grave only to find it empty.

 _way beter already,_ he writes now, in that shitty, spiky handwriting of his. He writes worse than Nott does, she thinks, and that’s already something of an achievement. Nott at least knows what punctuation is. Nott’s at least _consistent_.

“Yeah, you have an apple pie and a cat, that’s an upgrade from— _that_ ,” she says.

 _sun in my face is good to,_ Molly writes. _I havent been out a lot laetly. This is the 1st tym in a whyl._

Nott stares at him. She’s going to regret asking him this, she just knows it. “Where were you, then, if you weren’t out a lot?” she asks. “Where did they keep you?”

Molly twirls the pen around between his fingers, lets out a shaky breath, his gaze falling away from Nott and down to his notebook. _dunjons,_ he writes, and it takes her a moment to sound out the word and realize what it means. Her stomach churns, suddenly. _easyest place to keep an eye on sombody. very conveenyent to because I was never to far when they needed me._ His pencil shakes in his hand, the wood of it threatening to break in his grip.

Yeah, okay, bad idea. Nott reaches over and says, “I’ll just take this, all right,” and swipes the pencil from Molly’s hand. The notebook shuts closed too, and Molly’s already pulling Frumpkin back into his lap, petting him a little more than he had been before. Frumpkin meows, and places his paws on Molly’s chest, clambers up and licks gently at his face.

Molly seems to relax, a little more, then.

“Frumpkin does that a lot, lately,” says Nott, as Molly scratches Frumpkin behind his ears again. “He’s still _Caleb’s_ first and foremost, but he’s been doing that to Jester and Yasha, too. Especially Yasha, after—well, you know what.”

Molly shivers, and she gets the feeling it’s not because of any chill in the air. For one thing, there’s no chill in the air, it’s a bit warm out. He tugs his coat closer around himself, and keeps petting Frumpkin.

“She missed you the most, I think,” says Nott. “We thought we were gonna lose her after we lost you, when she left once. But then she came back. She’s—not bad, but you already know that. Whenever she’s around we’re a little better at not almost dying.”

Molly huffs out a breath, and just nods. He mimes swinging a two-handed sword around, tugs on his braid, and smiles.

“She’s good at it, yep,” says Nott, hoping she got the meaning of what he was doing right. “Better than Fjord, maybe.”

That rates a proud grin, apparently. And another attempt to ruffle her hair, which Nott ducks away from. “You people have to stop doing that!” she complains, and Molly settles back into his seat with a look on his face that says he’ll get her again, one day.

She hands him back the pencil, after a moment, and he tucks it away in his coat once more. After a moment, she leans against him, because he is warm, and he’s right there. She feels him stiffen beside her, and for a moment she wonders if she’s overstepped a boundary or something, maybe she did, maybe he doesn’t like being touched so much anymore, maybe he doesn’t like being touched by goblins anymore—

Then he relaxes, and scoots a little bit closer.

She brings her flask out and unscrews the cap, taking a small swig to calm what’s left of her Itch. Then she holds it out to him and says, “You probably need it more than I do right now.”

Molly huffs out a chuckle and takes it from her, takes a brief sip. He almost chokes, and she remembers too late: right, at this point, no one knows just what kinds of alcohols are in her flask anymore. She knows some of it’s whiskey? Probably?

Molly gags, hands the flask back to her while he grabs on to the side of the bench and coughs. After a moment the coughing subsides and he flops back to rest against the back of the bench. He points at Nott’s flask, raising an eyebrow.

“It has many alcohols in it,” says Nott. “I—don’t really remember how many, actually. I just know it gets me good and drunk.” She takes another swig before she screws the cap back on.

Molly coughs once more, and sticks his tongue out away from her, _bleh_.

“Beau said that too,” says Nott, and smiles beatifically when she sees the utterly horrified look on Molly’s face.

A man passes them by, balding on top, pushing along a cart that’s been decorated with the words _MEAT PIES AND SAUSAGES_. “Getcher meat pies and sausages here!” he’s shouting as he pushes it along, and the very familiar smell of, ah, _mixed meats_ hits Nott’s nose when he does. She grins. “Guaranteed t’put hairs on yer chest! Getcher meat pies and sausages while they’re still hot! Only a copper a slice, two a sausage, and that’s cuttin’ me own throat!”

Molly’s already leaning forward, interested, even as the crowds begin to swallow the man up. Nott prods his arm and says, “Let’s go try some!”

He grins, nods. She grabs him by the arm and pulls him to his feet, Frumpkin jumping off his lap, and the two of them, along with Caleb’s cat, run at full speed after the man with the meat pies.


	13. come up for air

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Cold War Kids' "Miracle Mile".

The dwarf manning the game leans forward as Yasha walks up to him and says, “Ah, hello, miss! Come to try your hand at the ring toss, eh?” He grins up at her, a bucktoothed smile that’s missing a couple of teeth, and sweeps his hand out towards the three poles set up at varying distances. The first one’s just ten feet away, the second twenty-five, and the third—with just one single, solitary ring around it—is at least thirty-five feet away. “Get a ring ‘round one of those, you get a prize!”

Beau leans on the counter and says, “What if you get all three?”

“Then you get the biggest prize,” says the dwarf, waving a hand at the thing that drew Yasha here in the first place: an ornamental sword with a blue hilt, the same color as Beau’s robes. It’s maybe the prettiest thing in this whole street right now, because Beau’s staring at it with the eyes of someone who wants to at least have it on her person, for bragging rights.

And Yasha’s going to win it for her.

It’s a foolproof plan, this plan she pulled together with Fjord and Jester when they came back to the inn: Beau likes being given things, even if she doesn’t exactly express it well sometimes, and she really did like the throwing stars. So, well, maybe if Yasha wins her something nice, like that ornamental sword with the blue hilt, she’ll think Yasha’s even cooler than she already is. She’ll be even more intrigued.

“And then you’ll make out!” Jester had said, with a gleeful grin and a clap.

“That’s, uh,” Fjord had said. “That’s a bit fast, don’t you think?”

“I think I’ll just settle for her hand?” Yasha had said, somewhat uncertain, and Jester had made a face at her. It would be nice, to get to kiss Beau, but Yasha’s not Molly, who throws himself into relationships like there’s no tomorrow. Threw himself. Throws himself. She wants time to figure this out.

But the ornamental sword could help her case. So she tosses the dwarf enough coppers for nine tries, lines up the ring and squints down the line to the first pole.

She throws.

The ring catches on the pole and spins downward. Beau whistles lowly, impressed in a way that warms Yasha from the inside out, and says, “That’s real cool.”

“Do you want your prize now,” says the dwarf, “or—”

“No, I wanna try for the big one,” says Yasha, already lining up her next toss for the next pole, twenty feet away from her this time. She has eight more tries, that should be more than enough.

The next ring lands _perfectly_ , the sound of it spinning around the pole like music to her ears. Just to show off, she spins the next ring around her finger and smiles at Beau, who grins back and gives her a thumbs-up.

It doesn’t land on the third pole, instead almost knocking the pole off-balance when it bounces off. The dwarf hurries over to right it and pick up the ring, but he calls back, “It’s okay! You got six more tries!”

“You can do it,” Beau says, encouraging. “Come on. Get that sword, Yasha. _Get it._ ”

“I’m _trying_ ,” Yasha mutters, lining up her next toss. She tilts her head to the side, closing one eye to better line the shot up. She draws her hand back and _throws_ , but the ring just bounces off the poor dwarf’s head instead. “Sorry!” Yasha says. “Sorry, I’m so sorry—”

“Eh, no worries,” says the dwarf, patting his head. “Least I’m not the darts guy.” He chuckles, and hops back up onto his station. “Five more tries to go.” He leans in a little closer and whispers, conspiratorial, “Your little lady here’s watching, don’t let her down.”

“I’m trying not to,” Yasha whispers back, and lines her shot up again. She’d overdone it on the last one, she thinks, but this time she tosses the ring up and down and squints down the line at the pole. She’s done this before, at the circus, just for kicks. She draws her hand back and _throws_ , and the damn ring finally, _finally_ lands onto the pole, spinning down.

The dwarf lets out a loud cheer. Beau lets out a louder one, throwing her hands up with a scream of exhilaration as Yasha breathes out, relieved. “Yeah!” she shouts. “ _Yeah, Yasha!_ ”

“Thanks,” says Yasha. “Can I have the sword now?”

Beau pumps her fist into the air with a loud hoot, and then punches Yasha’s shoulder out of excitement. The dwarf chuckles and hops off his stool, dragging it over to the sword so he can carefully take it off its pedestal.

Yasha takes the sword in her hand. Definitely ornamental, definitely not magical. The weight distribution is all wrong for a sword that should see battle, the pommel made in such a way that it would break if Yasha actually held it as tightly as she holds her own sword, but Yasha doesn’t care. She’s not going to use it.

“Here,” she says, passing it over to Beau. “It’s—nice. It suits you.”

“Cool,” says Beau, turning it around, over and over. She does a couple of practice swings with it and laughs, overbalancing somewhat but course-correcting in time. “God, I really wanna keep this and not give it up to Molly, it’s shitty enough that I could use it. I deserve this sword, don’t you think?”

Wait.

Beau had been eyeing up the sword for _Molly_?

“Oh,” says Yasha, faintly. “Um. Yes.”

“Could wreck somebody’s shop with it before it breaks,” Beau continues, doing another practice swing, showing off her muscles incidentally. Yasha tugs at her collar. It’s getting hot here, really. “But practically speaking Molly’s the guy who’d get more use out of it. He used to have those shitty little carnival-glass scimitars, he’d probably like this.”

“It’s a little heavy for him,” says Yasha, imagining Molly trying to swing the sword around. Yeah, he’d fall over, and then laugh at her if she told him the truth behind who was supposed to get it. “I mean. You could use it. It could work.”

“Yeah, I bet it could,” says Beau with a smile, brilliant and dazzling, cocksure, like the whole world’s her oyster and she’s ready to take it on. Yasha doesn’t know what she did to get her attention, somehow, but she wants to keep it. She wants to keep Beau, close to her chest, close to her heart. It makes her dizzy, this wanting.

She swallows. She could say it. She could say it right now. _Beau, I think I might like you. A lot._

No, that’s not right, isn’t it.

_Beau, can I kiss you?_

“Hey,” says Beau, gesturing to someone selling ales, and just like that the opportunity passes, the spell breaks, “let’s go check ‘em out! Can’t be worse than the last festival.”

Yasha huffs out a quiet laugh. “There’s no Victory Pit,” she says. “As far as we know, anyway.” And last festival they didn’t have anything else to worry about, other than enjoying the hell out of it. This time they’ve got a wizard digging her fingers into Molly’s head, diamond dust to collect, a cleric to keep from going insane. This festival is going much less well than the last one, already.

“We should check it out if they got something like it,” Beau muses. “Least to watch, if not participate.” She sighs, rueful. “We got way too much shit going on to actually fight.”

“We could ask,” says Yasha. “And—we could. Make a day of it. Um, if you want.”

Beau hums, and says, “Uh, yeah, ‘course I do! Jester’d love to watch, I bet.”

“I was sort of hoping,” starts Yasha, but someone’s calling out to Beau now, a familiar light, cheery voice, and now Jester’s pushing through the crowd with a grin of her own, triumphantly holding a bag of pastries aloft. Fjord follows in her heels, a bruise blooming on the side of his face that he’s pressing an ice pack to. “I was kind of hoping we’d go by ourselves,” says Yasha, but Beau’s already gone from earshot.

She sighs. Well. This is just. Great. She really hopes Molly’s not too hung up over his own crush right now. Between the two of them, she’s honestly pretty sure Molly’s got a better chance of at least getting _somewhere_ with someone in the next week or so, and he’s the one crushing on the antisocial hobo.

“Yasha!” Beau shouts, over the din of the crowds. “ _Yashaaaaa!_ ”

“Coming!” Yasha calls back. She looks back at the dwarf, who’s raised an eyebrow right into his hair, watching them. “Don’t,” she says.

“You’re gonna get her someday,” says the dwarf, pointing at Beau, then at Yasha, with an encouraging grin. “That girl’s in love with you. You’re in love with her. It’s gonna happen _one_ day, you mark my words.”

Yasha stares at him, then turns away and walks off, trying to keep her cheeks from heating _somehow_.

She can only hope Molly’s having better luck with Caleb than she is with Beau, right now.

\--

Verrin’s not too hard to keep track of, for Caleb—he just has to cast Locate Creature and keep about thirty feet away from her, at least. Crowds are a bit difficult, but Caleb has soldiered through much worse than crowds. They’re probably something of a blessing, in fact, because Caleb can blend into the throngs of revelers with very little effort on his part, just a whisper to clean himself up just a bit with Prestidigitation.

A woman passes him by, laughing as she smacks her hand against a tambourine. Her skirts shift and flare and expose tattoos, and Caleb half-thinks he sees lavender skin and red eyes, not ash-grey skin and blue eyes. It almost costs him, this delay, and he swears as he has to start off again before Verrin leaves the spell’s field.

He turns a corner, and catches sight of her leathers, her dark hair, as she ducks into what seems to be another back door. He squints: it’s a bar, definitely, the kind that serves less-than-legal alcohol to a crowd as shady as the true Evening Nip’s, back in Zadash. There’s a sign over the door that reads _Corie’s_ , with a crude drawing of a heavily-muscled orcish woman slamming her fist into an open palm beside the letters.

Caleb pulls the hood of his coat up. No one seems to be watching the entrance at the moment, so he heads inside, keeping his head ducked low.

Corie’s is _dark_ , lit just enough by dim, flickering torchlight that any (sober) humans inside can navigate the layout without bumping into a table or a chair, but Caleb can barely make out people’s appearances. The only reason he even knows Verrin is here is because of his spell, and he can’t see her right now—

Someone grabs him by the back of his coat. “Let’s fucking talk, asshole,” comes the familiar snarl, and Caleb finds himself dragged off, past the tables, past the bar and its half-orc bartender, and past a set of doors for what he quickly realizes should be the game room—only once the doors shut, he sees that there’s not a _lot_ in here, besides a lone, solitary table with holes along its side.

She slams him down onto the table and says, “Why the _fuck_ do you people keep following me?!”

“If you let me up I can tell you,” says Caleb, somewhat muffled by the fact that she’s grinding his face into the wood of the table.

There’s a silence, then Verrin lets him up, spins him around to grab the collar of his shirt. “Can you tell me now?” she says, clearly trying for saccharinely sweet, but falling far too short of the mark.

“You knew Astrid,” says Caleb.

“No fucking shit,” says Verrin. “I told you, my friend’s her fucking apprentice. We’ve seen each other once or twice.”

“No, not just that,” says Caleb, letting the authority slide back into his voice, straightening up as best as he can with an angry woman holding him by the collar. It’s easy enough to slip the skin of the boy he used to be back on, his training like a worn overcoat that only itches a little bit. “You knew what else she did, you knew about what the warmages did besides what the public saw. You weren’t just your friend’s companion, were you? You were one of Astrid’s pupils. Weren’t you?”

Verrin stares at him and says, “Fucking—yes. Fine. Yes. Janie and I got handpicked because of our abilities. She said, fuck, I don’t know, we were—complementary, or something.” Her grip on him tightens, and she glares up at him with a clarity and ferocity Caleb wouldn’t have expected, from the woman Beau first met drunkenly pummeling the hell out of someone in a bar fight just yesterday. “She said it was a fucking honor, a _privilege_ for me to be a part of it all.”

“He said the same thing to us, too,” says Caleb, and Verrin makes a choked noise, almost like a hysterical laugh. “I told you Astrid and I were friends, did I not?”

“You did,” says Verrin, her eyes narrowing before the realization sinks in, and she lets go of him, stepping back. “Oh,” she says. “ _Oh._ Fuck, you were— _shit_.” She scrubs her hand over her face, and it strikes Caleb, suddenly: if he hadn’t broken, she would’ve reported to him, instead. Her friend would be _his_ apprentice, instead. No doubt that’s what she’s thinking, too.

And then he thinks—his parents would simply be traitors who deserved their deaths, to that Caleb. Molly would only be one of _die lebenden Toten_ , to that Caleb. It makes him feel sick to his stomach, to know that about himself, and he swallows the bile back and adds it to the ever-growing pile.

“I was,” says Caleb, tiredly. “I’m not, anymore. I imagine you feel the same way.”

“Don’t tell me how I feel, fucker,” Verrin mutters, but she slumps against the table, combs her hair back with her fingers, and looks up at him now, dark eyes meeting his in a steely gaze. “Why tell me this? Why follow me? You had your shot already and you threw it away for your friend to ask some bullshit question.”

“I did not want to drag either of them into this,” Caleb says.

“Your friend the tiefling looked like he was going to have a fucking heart attack the second I said Astrid,” says Verrin. “I think he was staving one off the whole time. The hell happened to him?”

“I did not want to drag either of them into this any further,” Caleb amends. “Mollymauk has been through enough, and his memory is suspect, and Nott is—she knows enough, already, and I do not want to pull her in so deep that she cannot get out.” This is Caleb’s past, Caleb’s mess to fix, and it’s spilled over onto Molly and Nott and everyone else enough. “You need to tell me all that you know of Astrid,” he says. “And perhaps even Eodwulf and Ikithon, if you’ve met either of them.”

“Oh, I’ve met them,” says Verrin, her face growing dark as a thundercloud. “It was after a small clusterfuck, so—it wasn’t a good time, let’s just say.”

Ikithon would be very disappointed _at least_ , after a small clusterfuck. Caleb isn’t surprised it wasn’t a good time, he’s somewhat more surprised Verrin managed to make it through that mess alive.

“But I know Astrid best,” she goes on. “We worked directly for her.” She sighs. “Always figured she had a chip on her shoulder for some reason. Now I think— _you’re_ that chip, aren’t you?”

Astrid had called Caleb _the best of us_ once, when they were younger, dizzy with wine and celebration. She’d had warmer eyes then, and all their ambition hadn’t sharpened her tongue and worn away her compassion and innocence. That Astrid died with her parents, and this one now with something to prove—Caleb doesn’t know her as well as he did with the girl she used to be.

“I don’t know,” says Caleb, honestly. “We have not met again in a very long time. Sixteen, seventeen years, perhaps.”

“Why do you need to know?” says Verrin. “Are you planning on meeting up with her again?”

“I don’t _plan_ to do anything that involves confronting her,” says Caleb, and that much is true, his stomach churns at the very thought of going up against her now. He’s become more powerful now over the past seven months than he was when he escaped the asylum, but he still isn’t quite as good as he used to be. In a fight between him and Astrid, she’d win. “But she has something that belongs to a friend of mine, and I don’t doubt that we will meet again, somehow. And I want to be prepared, for when we do, because we will have to take that thing back from her.”

“This friend of yours,” says Verrin, “must be real important to you.”

He thinks of Molly, standing over him, swords glowing bright. He thinks of Molly’s grin, dazzling and bright, the brightest thing there was in the midst of Harvest Close. He thinks of how warm Molly had been when he’d pulled Caleb to his feet, in that prison in Hupperdook, the way his lips had parted ever so slightly when Caleb called him _magical_. He thinks of how close they almost came to kissing, just a scant hour before at least.

“ _Ja_ ,” he says.

Verrin lets out a breath and says, “You’re not gonna tell me if I ask who this friend is, huh?”

“We don’t pay you enough to care about that,” says Caleb, and Verrin glares up at him.

“Fine,” she says, crossing her arms. “You’re right, I don’t get paid enough to give a shit who it is.” But there’s an undercurrent of _I know who it is anyway_ , underneath. They haven’t been careful enough to hide it, after all, and Verrin’s not an idiot, as much as she seems disinterested in anything beyond her friend and her next bottle of booze. It’s more than likely she’s figured out that Molly’s involvement with Astrid was less than willing. “And if I don’t get paid enough to give a shit about any of you—”

“I’ll buy your next round of drinks,” says Caleb, almost immediately. “Will that be an acceptable trade?”

Verrin opens her mouth, as if to tell him exactly where he can shove that suggestion. Then she pauses, and closes her mouth, clearly mulling the idea over. Caleb counts the cracks in the ceiling while she does so, and is up to about ten when she says, “All right, fine. Buy me booze, I’ll tell you what I know about Astrid.”

And with that, she grabs him by the elbow— _Scheiße,_ she does have some strength to her—and drags him back out into the bar proper.

\--

“—and then Fjord was like _don’t worry, I’ve got this_ and he did have this!” Jester finishes, as the four of them move through the rapidly increasing press of people. Verrin was apparently not kidding when she said Lynbroke got real popular around this time, and Fjord once has to sidestep a nobleman with white hair chasing after, of all goddamn things, a _bear_.

Beau squints after the guy, and says, “Man, this place attracts all kinds of people.”

“I think the bear stole my donut,” huffs Jester, glaring after the bear like she just might start in after it.

“I could get that donut back,” Yasha muses.

“Bear’s earned that donut, I think,” says Fjord, trying to ward off the flashbacks of having to steal back a croissant from a wolf, once. “We’ll get you another one, Jes’. In fact—think we could get one right now, actually.” He jerks his thumb over towards a bakery with a small crowd around it, with croissants and donuts and bagels and so much more on display in the window.

Jester’s eyes grow wide as saucers, and Fjord swears he can see the stars in them. “Bear claws!” she shouts. “Oh, _oh_ —I bet they have cinnamon in them, like in Nicodranas!”

“We should totally go check it out,” says Beau, and she and Jester tear off just seconds later towards the stall, chattering about bear claws and the best pastries to dip into beer. Fjord looks at Yasha, who shrugs.

“I’ve got some gold left over,” she says.

“Oh, good,” says Fjord, “I lost most of mine when I lost my dignity in that carnival game.”

“I kind of wish I’d seen that,” says Yasha, with a small smile.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Fjord mutters. “That was worse than last time. Got my ass kicked by a _nine-year-old_ , that was how bad it was.”

Yasha chuckles, and the two of them walk forward into the crowd. Then she says, “It made Jester laugh, though,” and Fjord’s steps stutter even as Yasha goes on, not even breaking her stride. Gods, he can’t believe this. He gets this kind of thing from Beau and Nott and even Clay already, used to get it from Molly (and isn’t _that_ still a kick in the heart even now), now he’s getting it from _Yasha_? She’d asked him for advice on how to get Beau gifts last night!

He tugs his collar up, before he remembers that it doesn’t go that far. He’ll just have to hope no one notices him blushing. It should be easy enough, with his complexion, but he still feels exposed, naked. A hand drifts up to his mouth to pick, nervously, at his tusks.

“Fjord!” calls Jester, somewhere through the crowd. Fjord’s hand drops, almost immediately, remembering how he’d promised her. “Fjord, they have bear claws from Nicodranas!”

“And that alcohol bread too!” Beau yells.

“I’ll get that!” Yasha’s voice drifts out.

Fjord sighs, and pushes through the crowd. “Excuse me, pardon me, sorry ma’am, ‘scuse me,” he says, keeping a hand on his coin purse. More than once someone snaps something at him, but he’s figured out right quick that it’s less because he’s a half-orc and more just—apparently Lynbroke people are just _rude_ to new people, in general. “Sorry, sir,” he says, to a man who grumbles something about _fuckin’ tourists, can’t buy a damn map_.

Yeah. Rude.

He pushes his way into the bakery, in time to find Jester triumphantly munching on a bear claw, one hand cocked on her hip, holding a bag full of pastries. She’s in front of a display that’s been intricately, delicately arranged into the shape of a dick somehow. He’s impressed at how quickly she’s worked, and his heart beats a little faster at the sight of her bright grin. “You guys saved some for me, right?” he says.

“Of course,” she says.

“Like two’s left in her bag,” says Beau, passing by with black bread stuffed haphazardly into a paper bag. Yasha’s right on her heels, carrying an ungodly amount of bread.

“Three, one’s for Nott,” says Jester. “One’s for you, and one’s for Molly.” She leans in closer to whisper, “I don’t trust Caleb with bread ‘cause he sticks his hands in them.”

“Is that so,” says Fjord, faintly.

“I saw,” says Jester, before she glances away. “Oh, hold this for me, I need to do something first!” she says, and that’s how Fjord finds himself in the middle of a crowded bakery with a bag full of pastries in his hand, in front of a display that’s been tastefully arranged to look like a dick. Jester’s swallowed up by the crowd fairly quickly, and Fjord rocks back and forth on his heels, tries not to let the worry show on his face.

They’re fine. They’re fine. They’re all fine. If he gives a shout, Beau and Yasha and Jester will answer. Nott and Caleb have Molly, and they’re going to be fine, they’re probably on their way back to the inn right now, and they maybe even have a ridiculous tapestry in tow again. Or, knowing Nott, a glittering statuette with rubies for eyes or something like that. They’re all fine. They’re all okay. They’re all _fine_. Nothing like the Shepherds is going to happen again just because they’ve split up for a time—

Someone bumps into him, and Fjord has to bite back a curse. “Sorry!” says the woman who bumped into him, a short, blonde half-elf with green eyes and immaculately-maintained robes, the symbol of the Lawbringer hanging from her hip. “Sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize anyone was there!”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” says Fjord, holding his hands up and flashing the poor girl his most charming smile. “It’s a pretty crowded place, I don’t blame you.”

“Wow,” breathes the girl, “you must really be new here.”

“That obvious, huh,” says Fjord.

“You’re very nice, it’s nice,” says the girl. “Um. Hi. Sorry I bumped into you, I should’ve been looking. I didn’t realize it would be so crowded, I thought—well, there’d be less people.” She flashes a small smile, but it looks a little pained, and she looks a little like Caleb, when circumstances force him to Interact With People. “I miscalculated, there are a _lot_ of them.”

“It is a festival,” says Fjord.

“That it is,” the girl says, scratching the back of her neck in obvious sheepishness. “Oh, I _forgot_ about it, I really have to—gods, I’ve been getting so forgetful lately.” She chuckles a little to herself, stuffs a hand into one of the pockets of her robe. “If it wasn’t for my teacher reminding me to take a vacation every so often I might’ve just gone straight on to graduation day without having ever taken one.”

“Doesn’t exactly sound like a healthy way to learn,” Fjord says, leaning against the table, careful not to disturb Jester’s dick display. “Sounds like your teacher’s sensible, at least.”

“She is!” says the girl. “Strict, yeah, and sometimes short-tempered, but she’s a good teacher. One of the best the Soltryce Academy has.”

Fjord’s brain screeches to a stop, then and there, and he only just manages to choke back a horrified noise.

Right, the _Academy_. The letter is still burning a hole in his bag, he hasn’t—what is he supposed to do with it now? He can’t just toss it away. Jester went to all that trouble to get him a letter of recommendation, and he’s not going to lie, he could use the help the Academy could provide, in figuring out what the hell he can do now, what his dreams have to do with them. He still has very little idea, only the barest of threads connecting the two questions together.

But he can’t help but think of Caleb, eyes fixed on his hands as he talked about killing his parents for his graduation. He can’t help but think of Molly, blood dripping from his arm, the ugly, serrated sword gleaming wickedly in the fading moonlight. Maybe that Ikithon guy wasn’t a part of the Academy, but he was close enough to it that they let him take his pick of the most powerful mages. And apparently this Astrid lady’s a part of the school. _We were special. Diamonds in the rough,_ Caleb’s voice echoes in Fjord’s head.

“Oh?” he manages. Some part of him still can’t stop thinking about the half-feral look in Molly’s eyes, when he’d tried to kill Beau. “Y’know, I’ve been thinking about heading up there, actually. What’s it like in Rexxentrum?”

“Very cold,” says the girl, shivering a little. But she smiles, brightly. “But it’s such a magical place,” she says. “It can be tough there, certainly, but it’s worth it!”

Fjord glances around, spies Jester in the crowd watching him, and says too loudly, “Oh, Jester, hey! Come on over, this is—uh, pardon my manners, ma’am, I was just shocked to hear you were from the Academy, might I trouble you for your name? I’m Fjord.”

“Janille,” says the girl, as Jester walks over, without any pep in her step. Her eyes narrow at the mention of the Academy, the same thoughts of Caleb and Molly no doubt running through her mind. “Oh, hi! You’re, um.”

“Jester,” says Jester. “You’re from the Academy? We’ve heard lots of things about the Academy.” To her credit, she doesn’t say that they’re all horrible things from a former pupil, but she sounds about as enthusiastic about it as she would be for a haversack empty of donuts.

Janille seems to notice, because she deflates somewhat before she rallies. “Well, whatever they were, they’re not very true,” she says, and Fjord wonders if she really believes what she’s saying. His fingers flex, curl around thin air and not the hilt of his falchion. The place is too crowded for a fight, and Fjord’s not sure how much this girl knows. If she even knows anything at all. She could be innocent. She could have no idea what’s going on there.

Breathe, Fjord. Breathe.

“Oh?” says Jester, leaning in closer. “So how true are they?”

“I said not very,” says Janille. “Yes, the school can be harsh, but it’s only in the service of bettering the mage. Only through the strongest fires,” she recites, like she’s reading off a book, “can the strongest swords be forged.”

“You can’t actually do that,” says Yasha, walking up with a half-eaten croissant in her hand. “The strongest fires could probably kill you while you’re working on the sword. Either that, or it’ll shatter while you’re hammering it out. It needs to be just hot _enough_ to make the steel malleable so you can work on it.” She looks between the three of them. “What’s up? Who’s this girl?”

“My name’s Janille,” says Janille, blinking up at Yasha with wide eyes. “Um. Hi?”

“How do you know that?” whispers Jester, awed.

“I, um, I used to help the blacksmith,” says Yasha, her hand drifting up to rub at her forearm. “Sometimes. Back home. If I didn’t, um, do something well enough, I’d be sent there.”

Fjord decides not to ask just _how_ she helped the blacksmith, or why going there would be a punishment for her, because he’s had his fill of unexpected horrors coming from his friends this week. Every time Yasha talks about Xhorhas, there’s always one of those coming out from her mouth, and after what Caleb’s told them of their past, and Molly’s whole situation, Fjord just doesn’t want to know any more details.

“It’s just,” starts Janille, then she sighs. “It’s just a thing people say,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear. “You get what I mean, right?”

“I get what you mean,” says Fjord. “I was on a ship ‘bout a year or so ago. My old captain, he used to say, _misery builds character_.” Granted, the captain would then go on to add that usually unending misery built a _terrible_ sort of character in someone, and then shove Fjord out the door so he could go join his mates on shore leave and _not stay on the goddamn ship, quartermasters need a break, Fjord_ , but that’s not something he’s going to tell this kid right now. “Janille, that’s Yasha. Yash, where’s Beau?”

“Showing off for a kid right now,” says Yasha, nodding towards—yeah, that’s definitely Beau just outside the entrance, and she’s definitely showing off with her staff and that weird, ornamental sword she got, right now, grinning as some kid claps happily. Fjord sighs, because he’s definitely not expecting help from that quarter now. It’s weird, he thinks. When Molly died, it had been as if Beau decided to try and pick up the slack he’d left behind, be a better person. Sometimes that means fucking up some asshole’s shit, and sometimes—like today, apparently—it means making some kid’s day better.

“Janille’s from the _Soltryce Academy_ ,” says Jester, her voice a little too loud for a whisper, and Fjord sees Yasha go _still_. Her eyes don’t go tar-black, but her entire posture stiffens up like she’s readying herself for a fight.

“Is that so,” says Yasha. Fjord’s pretty sure her croissant is not going to stand up for very long against the pressure of her fingers.

“I was just talking to your friend about it,” says Janille. “He seems interested! And, and, _and_.” She draws herself up to her full height, which is much, much shorter than Yasha. “Whatever you heard about the Academy, it’s not true. It’s tough, yes, but it’s fair, and your friend here would do well there, I think.” She turns back to Fjord, and says, with bright, fervent eyes, “You seem like you would thrive there, you really do. I know my teacher would love to have you around, she’s always saying she’d love to branch out. That’s—sort of how she started with me, actually.”

Fjord glances at Yasha, whose croissant has crumbled in her hand. “That’s great,” he says, a creeping suspicion starting to crawl up his spine, “say, who’s your teacher? Might be I’d like to talk to her about getting into the Academy, if ever we meet again.”

She opens her mouth.

“Janille!” someone calls, and Janille whips around. “Janille, c’mon, we’ll miss the firedancers!”

“There are _firedancers_?” Jester yelps.

“I have to go, I’m so sorry, I promised a friend I’d take them to see the festival’s best attractions,” says Janille, backing away now, holding her hands out and shaking them as she goes. “But if you need to talk to me, I’m staying at the Shield’s Grace inn for a few nights!” She gives a final wave goodbye, before she turns around and melts back into the crowd, calling for her friend.

“The what,” says Yasha.

“Shield’s Grace,” says Fjord, resting a hand on the edge of the table, careful not to jostle it too much, because Jester’s dick display is still proudly standing behind him.

Yasha licks at her lips, crosses her arms and says, “You shouldn’t talk to her.”

“She might have information that we _need_ ,” Fjord argues. “We can’t just pass up an opportunity that’s been dropped into our laps.”

“She’s from the Soltryce Academy,” says Yasha, firmly, and Fjord half-thinks he can see the skeletal wings from her back, springing out from under her shawl, the same way they did when they stumbled on Molly’s empty grave. “The same Academy that _broke_ Caleb and Molly.” She huffs out a breath. “She might have information we need, fine. She also just lied to us, if she doesn’t really believe what she’s saying about the Academy. And if she does, then she’s still not a really reliable source, either. Either way, we can’t risk it.”

“Maybe she’s not the most reliable source, but she’s _a_ source besides Caleb,” says Fjord. “I’d trust the guy with my life, but he said so himself, anything he’s got is about ten years out of date. We gotta talk to someone who’s been there in the past year, and who’s most likely met this Astrid woman at some point within the past five years.”

“Do we even know if she knows Astrid?” says Yasha.

“I think I sort of met Astrid,” says Jester, chewing on her lip somewhat. “It was in Molly’s head, so technically I don’t think it counts.” She huffs out a breath. “She was a _total asshole_.”

“Could you—I don’t know, could you trace the spells back to her if you needed to?” says Yasha, scratching her head.

“Nope,” says Jester, shaking her head, “I tried. Remove Curse is pretty limited anyway, all I can do with it is undo spells. I don’t _think_ there’s a spell that could let you trace spells back to their original caster, but I’ll ask the Traveler.”

“While Jester does that,” says Fjord, “we still need to know more about who we’re going up against. And we’re gonna have to go up against her at some point.” The words are out of his mouth before he can really think about them, but the moment they’ve left, he knows for a fact that they’re true, have been since they pulled Molly back into their fold. “I dunno about you, but I think we’d be better-equipped to help Molly if we knew more about her besides what Caleb can tell us.”

“We’d also be better-equipped to help Molly,” says Jester, tucking her hands into her pockets, “if we aren’t either dead or brainwashed either, and we’d probably end up one or the other or _both_ if we aren’t really careful about this. That would put a really big damper on all our plans.”

Yasha points at Jester, and says, “What she said.”

“We’re gonna be careful,” says Fjord, trying his best to sound reassuring, to sound like he’s got a plan that isn’t _hope to god that this works out well enough_. “This Janille lady doesn’t need to know we have Molly with us. Or Caleb. Hell, she doesn’t need to know there’s more than three of us, if we play this right.” And they have to. “We got time, and we know where she’s staying, currently. If she knows anything about Astrid and the Academy, beyond what she just told us, then it’d be well worth the trip.”

“If not?” says Yasha.

“Then all she needs to know is that I’m leaning away from the Academy, for my own reasons,” says Fjord. It isn’t false. “But we’ve got to find out for sure.”

“What are we talking about?” says Beau, walking up now. “I heard Academy. Weren’t you planning on going there?”

“Yeah, well,” says Fjord, glancing at Jester, who’s frozen up now, “with everything we know about it now? Seems like that’s not a good plan.” As he watches, Jester relaxes a little, and she meets his gaze with a smile that’s just a tad too bright. There’s a worry in her eyes that scares Fjord, just a little bit. What had she seen in Molly’s head? “But we ran into someone from the Academy here, and I figured we could talk to her a little more.”

“And I think we probably shouldn’t,” says Yasha. “We have people they want.”

“Think this Academy person’s chill with a monk from the Cobalt Soul reserve?” says Beau, fixing her robes somewhat to look more like a monk. “I can probably help, if we’re fishing for info from her. Especially info on Ikithon and Astrid, and probably Eodwulf.”

“It’s a bad idea, you guys,” says Jester.

“Any better ones?” Beau says. “I’m all ears.”

Jester shakes her head. “I didn’t say I wasn’t going for it, I am, we don’t have any better ideas,” she says. “But like, I’m already fixing up Molly’s head, and that’s going to take a super long time by itself. And we don’t have Clay with us. We don’t wanna get hurt, the way Molly or Caleb did.”

Fjord lets out a breath, because—hell, it would’ve been nice to have Clay around. But he’s got his sister back, and he’s got a temple to look after. They can’t ask him to leave either, to look after them. “We’ll need to be careful,” he says.

“Which means you can’t tell people that you’re _you know what_ ,” Jester says to Yasha.

“Uh, what,” says Yasha, brow furrowing. “I don’t know what you mean. I can’t tell people I’m what?”

Beau taps Yasha’s shoulder, and Yasha bends down as Beau goes up on her toes to whisper something in her ear. Fjord grabs a sugary bun and says, “You know what this is, Jes’?”

“It’s a pastry, that’s what it is,” says Jester. “I don’t know what kind, though, it’s new to me.”

“Used to get these from the nearest bakery when I was younger,” says Fjord. “Me and a friend of mine, whenever we were done from chores, we’d come down there and we’d have these.” He chuckles to himself, a little sadly. It’s been such a long time, really, since he thought of that, since he had these little buns. “It’d be a real treat for us, after a long day.”

Jester grins, so bright and dazzling that Fjord’s stomach kind of flips, and says, “We can treat ourselves, then! It’s been a really long week.”

Honestly, it’s been a long seven months. They deserve treats. Fjord grabs a tray and piles up the sugary buns, just as Yasha says, “Oh, okay,” behind him.

“Anybody asks, you have _no idea_ ,” Beau says.

“Yeah, I just—woke up two years ago,” says Yasha, and Fjord holds in a half-hysterical laugh. It doesn’t work, Yasha’s looking at him now with what he’s pretty sure would be a pout on anyone else. “That works as a cover story, right?” she asks, sounding unsure.

“Molly would _love_ that cover story,” says Jester, seriously. “You should tell him.” Then she stops, and smiles softly down at the bun. It takes Fjord a moment to realize why, but when he does, he smiles to himself.

They can tell him, now. Maybe it’s not completely the same, since Molly’s pretty much largely mute until they can cast Greater Restoration on him, or until Jester’s slow-and-steady method of repeating Remove Curse gets there. But they can _tell him_ , they can talk to him again, and Fjord’s just happy to see him alive again. Everything else, they can deal with, long as they got each other’s backs.

“So we’re settled, then?” he says.

Yasha sighs. “I still think this is a very bad idea,” she says, again, “and I don’t like it. But if we’re really all doing this, then I’ll back you up.”

“Look at it this way, Yash,” says Fjord, “if it all goes south, and given how our luck tends to go, might be it will, you get to say you told me so.”

“I will,” says Yasha.

“You just _had_ to jinx it,” Beau grumbles, falling in beside Fjord as they start for the counter, sugary buns and other treats in their arms. She snatches a bun out from Fjord’s tray, turns to Jester, and the two of them start talking about, of all things, _Tusk Love_. Occasionally Yasha breaks in to contribute, but from what Fjord can hear, it’s mostly just confused questions about who Guinevere is, and why the sex in the woods is supposed to be so symbolic, and what’s Guinevere’s father’s job even supposed to be.

For the first time in a while, maybe for the first time since the Iron Shepherds, he feels—good. Like everything’s going to turn out fine.

...even if he just jinxed it.

\--

“That meat pie was _great,_ ” says Nott, as Molly licks off the grease from his fingers. They’re ambling down the street now, taking in the sights of the festival, from carnival games to more food stalls to a huge variety of street performers. God, there are _so many_ street performers, there’s ten to a block and Molly is going to stop and watch _all_ of them. And flip them a silver.

They haven’t moved very far from the meat pie vendor, the one named Dibbler. Molly still spies him out of the corner of his eye, hawking his wares.

He looks down at Nott, taking her meat pie slowly as if to savor it. He—should probably ask her just what was in that pie, actually. He’ll get to that later, if he ever does. He finds he rather prefers the mystery of not knowing.

He wipes what little grease is left off on his shirt. Fjord’s shirt, which is a little too big on him and, frankly, is starting to smell a bit, since Molly came back to them in armor and fucking nothing else. He could really use a bath, and a haircut, and some actual clothes. And a look in the mirror, maybe. He knows he looks more than a little bit fucked up, right now, but he needs to know just how much.

Nott licks off the last crumbs of pie from her fingers, and sighs happily. “Ah, mixed meats,” she says. “You could really taste the r—uh, roast beef in there!”

He raises an eyebrow at her, but gives her a short clap anyway. It’s a good save. He glances down at his clothes and sighs a little.

Nott huffs out a breath, then her eyes land on something that Molly can’t quite see, with all these people in the way. She grabs at his hand again and pulls him along, dragging him past _holy shit that’s a firedancer_ , Molly’s distracted for a good two minutes by the sheer skill they’re showing off before Nott pulls him past with a curse.

“You’re really starting to smell,” she says, and Molly rolls his eyes. Yeah, he knows. He’s got a working nose. “Although I think maybe that’s not totally your fault, you’re wearing Fjord’s old shirt and Caleb’s old pants and your old coat, and we didn’t manage to get the, uh, soot out from the last guy who had it. But that’s probably annoying you, right?”

Molly tries to crane his neck so he can better see the patches on his coat, searching for soot stains that they’re covering up. It doesn’t work, he just gets a crick in his neck, and they’re still moving, so he can’t even see it very well. He sighs and nods.

“And, you know that Caleb doesn’t care about getting new clothes,” she goes on, “but I think he’d be happy to get his spare pants back, at least. So.” She comes to a stop in front of a bustling shop, and throws her hands out towards it, as if to show it off. “Ta-da!”

It’s a thrift store.

More than that, it’s a thrift store that _sells clothes_. Hats, too, and costume jewelry, and various other knickknacks, but Molly’s attention is drawn towards all the colorful and _beautiful_ clothes on display. There’s a low-cut dress there that’s a bright, bright red, and just needs some adjustments if he’s going to wear it. There’s a billowy shirt with drapey sleeves, and it might be a bit too small in the shoulders but damn if he’s not going to pull it off. There’s a blue coat that’s seen quite a lot of wear and tear, and Molly gets the feeling it might’ve been some other adventurer’s, once. There’s _so much_ here to choose from, it’s almost overwhelming.

Frumpkin meows. Molly, just in time, remembers to keep his tail well out of the cat’s way, and glances back to see Frumpkin grumpily batting a paw at thin air.

Nott sighs, and scoops the cat up. “Are you okay?” she asks, worriedly, and Molly blinks. Oh, right. He’d been crying, hadn’t he. He rubs at his eyes and sniffs, because—fuck, how long has it been since he had _choices_? It’s so small a thing, so goddamn _tiny_ , to start crying over, but it’s been too long since he could just—waltz into a thrift store. Since he could decorate his body. Since he had any say over what happened to it, what it did.

“Oh, no,” says Nott. She puts Frumpkin down and steps forward, beckoning for Molly to bend down. He does.

She wraps her arms around him, and he goes still for a second, a tiny little part of him bracing for something. Whatever it is, it never arrives, and he lets himself relax into the embrace after a moment, bringing up his arms to hold her, too.

 _Thank you,_ he wants to say. _Thank you. Thank you so much._

But the geas strangles his voice, and all that comes out is a soft, hiccuping sob. Nott’s grip on him tightens, and it’s strange—Gustav had always joked that goblins would steal them away in the night if they weren’t all careful, but Molly would trust Nott with his life. Probably not his _money_ , but then again it’s not like he’s got a lot on him right now. Everything else, though? She’s a good egg.

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” she says, quiet. “All of this. I’ll make sure it never happens again. To you or anyone else.”

His grip on her tightens. Somehow, despite everything, despite how random and unfair the world sometimes is, he believes her.

He breaks away after a moment, wiping at his tears. He blinks at her, then rubs some tears away from her cheeks and smiles. Seems to work, Nott’s smiling back, breaking away too so she can pick Frumpkin up before he can rub his little kitty body up against a really lovely robe, striped and patterned in such a way that Molly thinks of a stray cat he saw once, in one town.

“Go, go,” she says.

He goes. He gets the dress, because it looks nice, and he does still have that sewing needle he might’ve stabbed Beau with, he can make a couple of adjustments. He gets the shirt, because he could absolutely rock it. He even gets the coat after a minute or two of deliberating over it, because he loves his current coat, it’s _his_ , but this one looks much warmer. Perfect for burrowing into if needed.

Because he’s a very considerate person, he also grabs trousers. There’s a plain, loose pair that he picks up more because he feels bad for wearing Caleb’s spare pair of pants for so long, but his eye lands on a pair that’s littered with sequins, with flashy costume gems here and there. He grabs that too. He takes a shabby hat with a peacock feather stuck in the rim, just for the hell of it. It’ll be fun, fixing it up.

The blonde halfling sitting on a stool behind the counter, drumming his fingers on the flat wood, blinks when Molly dumps the whole pile onto the surface, unfocused gaze snapping back to Molly and away from the door. “Oh,” he says, surprised. “Oh, uh, hi? Welcome to Elena’s! You’re buying?”

Molly grins, and shoves the pile of clothes towards him as Nott comes up.

“He can’t talk,” she helpfully supplies. “But he says yes, he’s buying.”

He nods, just as a half-elven redhead, with milky blue eyes and slightly pointed ears, pokes his head out of the back room. Blind, judging from how he feels around the place as he walks over to the halfling. Or limps over.

“I heard new voices. When did we get customers?” says the blind man, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“Like just _now_ , Mikhail,” says the halfling. “They’re right in front of you, they’re a purple tiefling and—um. A gnome? I think. Tiefling’s mute by the way.” He straightens up a little, his attention returning to them as he reassumes the Merchant Speaking to Customer Face, as Molly’s come to think of it. “Shit, where’re my manners? I’m Flynn, that’s Mikhail. You guys are…?”

Lot less formal than most other merchants Molly’s ever interacted with, though.

The half-elf, Mikhail, cocks his head towards Nott and sniffs a little. Molly steps just a little bit closer to Nott, his tail flicking around. Little aches flare up, here and there, but nothing so bad as they had been before.

“I’ll pay for him,” Nott says, and that seems to get Mikhail to back down somewhat. He’s still got his head cocked in Nott’s direction, though, in a way that Molly doesn’t entirely trust. “His name’s Molly. I’m—Holly. Wood.” There’s a moment before she adds, not at all convincingly, “I’m gnomish.”

Molly hopes to the Moonweaver that his smile doesn’t look too strained, because he could probably bullshit his way past this better than Nott. Actually, he definitely could. He absolutely could, if he only had his voice back.

“Molly and Holly,” says Flynn, shaking his head, glancing at his half-elf friend, who’s raised an eyebrow in Molly’s general direction as if he’s deeply, deeply unimpressed. “Well, fine. You feel like trying some of these out? Mikhail and I can make a couple of adjustments, especially to the pants, if you want your tail out.”

“He’s _blind_ ,” says Nott, which, yeah, Molly’s having trouble wrapping his head around the concept of a blind man sewing anything together too. But hey, who’s he to judge, he’s been dead at least twice and has weird blood powers.

“I’m very good with a needle,” says Mikhail, with a shrug, like that declaration’s not bound to pique someone’s curiosity. “It’s a joint effort, anyway. And—with adjustments, all this’ll cost you about, hm. Five silvers, maybe.”

Molly flicks his tail from side to side, and nods as Nott, with a quiet huff, plops two gold down onto the counter. He gives her a thumbs-up, and she sighs towards the ceiling.

“All right, we got a mirror in the back,” says Flynn, staring down at the gold coins. Even Mikhail seems a little thrown when he touches them, running his fingers over the grooves. “Um. Hey, uh, when do you want the change—”

Molly flaps his hand dismissively at Flynn as he gathers up the clothes. Then he flounces off towards the back, and the last thing he hears from the front is Nott saying, “He means _keep the change_. I don’t know, he likes to overpay.”

“Mikhail, I love this guy, _why can’t everyone be him._ ”

Molly chuckles to himself, then sweeps in past the curtain into the dressing room, dumps the clothes onto a chair, hangs his coat up on the coat rack, and—stops in his tracks, seeing the mirror. Seeing himself, in the mirror, for the first time in a while.

Oh. Huh. He really does need a haircut, Yasha’s braid has come loose. It’s much longer and much more ragged than he’d like, a mess of purple hair falling down to just past his shoulders, lanky and not very well-maintained. There are dark circles under his eyes like he really hasn’t slept great in a while, and a scar across his eyebrow that didn’t get healed fully. There’s a lot of scars he can’t quite remember getting, a couple of them marring his tattoos, and a scar over his heart where the glaive sank in, pitted and dark. His heart sinks at the sight, and he twists a lock of purple hair around a finger and stares at a stranger in the mirror.

Fuck, seven months can really fuck with someone.

Molly lets out a breath, and lets go of his hair. He’ll deal with all of that later, he decides. Right now, there’s clothes to try on, and so he strips down and pulls on the plain pants, first, and looks himself in the mirror. It’s a little bit uncomfortable at the moment, as the pants were clearly not made for tiefling tails in mind, so his tail is bunched up and not quite as free to move around.

He really does look like a mess. Even more of one than before. There’s half-healed scars on his torso that he only sort of remembers getting, other scars that he definitely remembers from—from downtime during those seven months. He shivers, and tugs on the billowy shirt. Okay, definitely a little narrow in the shoulders, he’ll get that fixed too if possible.

The plain pants are stripped off, the glittery pants come on. Molly grins at himself, admiring how the fabric seems to flatter his legs, seems to shine and sparkle as he moves. Jester’s going to love this, he thinks. He already does. He looks more like himself now.

He tugs the shirt back on again, just to see how it looks. Then he adds the blue coat, and twirls in place, giving it a little flourish. It’s a little drab, and there are little circular holes in places, rents and tears that say this coat’s been through a lot of fights, but that’s fine. His own coat has been through plenty of fights too.

Outside, he hears Nott saying something. He pokes his head out of the dressing room to see Flynn cooing over Frumpkin, but strangely no Nott in sight. For a moment his heart kicks up into his throat, because _where is she, where’s Nott, oh gods what if this is Jester and Fjord and Yasha disappearing again_ , but then a familiar shrill voice says in his ear:

_Molly! I stepped out for a minute because Caleb messaged me to come out so he could find us. Don’t worry, I’m just outside, I’m not going anywhere. You can reply to this message._

Molly lets out a relieved breath, and returns to the dressing room. There’s one final thing to try on, and he shucks off the pants, the coat and the shirt again. He grabs the dress, a low-cut red dress with a beautiful embroidered floral pattern along the hem, creeping up the sides of the dress like green vines, and pulls it on. He’s careful not to get it snagged on Nott’s crown charm, or Jester’s moon bauble.

It looks amazing. It looks _fantastic_ , and he does a little twirl in place to see. Then he mimes swinging his scimitars around, muscle memory guiding him through the movements. All right, needs a little more adjustment before he can run into a fight with it, and considering how much the Mighty Nein get into trouble, Molly’s pretty sure he’ll get into a fight with this dress on. He should really look into getting a shield.

He rolls the rest of the clothes up, and tugs his favorite coat back on. He’ll let Mikhail and Flynn have at the rest, but this dress he’s adjusting himself.

He walks out of the dressing room—

“Mollymauk?”

—and Caleb is there, staring at him, and Molly’s heart skips a beat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> embedded art by [briochetoast](http://briochetoast.tumblr.com/post/183395841644/fighting-back-tears-yeah-i-have-a-normal-number) on tumblr! they also made [this art](http://briochetoast.tumblr.com/post/183395923114/followup-to-this-one-the-full-flower-design-on) giving a better look at the back of Molly's dress.


	14. on that faded love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Fall Out Boy's "Heaven's Gate". songs in text are "Heaven's Gate" and Jon McLaughlin's "So Close".

“Caleb!” says Nott, as Caleb walks up to the thrift store. There’s a sign hanging above Nott’s head that declares the store to be _Elena’s Vintage Clothes_ , although the letters have faded a fair bit over time. He gets the sense it’s been repainted quite a bit, too. Inside, there is an ungodly amount of clothes, accessories, the works, all of them in various degrees of tacky. “Over here!”

“I see you, I see you,” says Caleb. “Where’s Mollymauk?”

“Inside getting new clothes, don’t worry, I checked all the exits, this is the only way he could get out if he flips his shit,” says Nott. Frumpkin winds around her ankles and meows contentedly. “I don’t think he will, though. You’ve got your spare pants back now, by the way.”

“That’s—considerate,” says Caleb, as they step inside. The store is a haphazardly arranged mess of clothes, with only a vague sense of order that Caleb can’t really decipher. There are outrageously tacky clothes everywhere, even more outrageous hats and accessories dangling from every hook there is. Caleb has to shut his eyes after a moment, because he might actually get a headache.

No wonder Molly’s in love with this place.

He looks at the two men at the counter, their heads bent together in some kind of conference. One is a halfling, with blonde hair falling to his shoulders in carefully maintained waves, and the other is a half-elf, with milky blue eyes that don’t quite track Caleb when he turns to him.

“Oh, wow,” says the halfling, wrinkling his nose. “Human, very shabby-looking, I think he might be kind of a hobo?”

“Yeah, probably, he smells worse than anything else here,” the half-elf huffs, his nose wrinkling up.

Nott bristles, but Caleb puts a hand on her head and says, “ _Hallo_ , I hear you are helping my friend with his purchases.”

“Your friend—oh! Purple tiefling with the tattoos!” says the halfling, smacking his fist into an open palm. “Right, he’s in the back trying them out. I can give him a yell, if you want—”

He doesn’t have to, it turns out, because Molly emerges from the back room with clothes and a truly offensive-looking hat with a peacock feather piled over his arm, and—oh.

He’s wearing a dress. He’s wearing a low-cut red dress that exposes a fair amount of his chest, and hugs his hips. The sleeves are puffy and velvet, ending just above the elbow, and there’s a floral pattern creeping up the sides of the dress from its hem. Movement might prove to be a problem if Molly ever needs to fight in that dress, he could probably trip if he had to run in it.

...he looks amazing.

“Mollymauk?” says Caleb, mouth dry.

Nott nudges the side of his leg. “You’re staring,” she says.

Molly grins and waves at him. Then he turns and dumps the pile of clothes onto the counter, giving Caleb a view of his back. The floral pattern flares onto the back of the dress into an explosion of color, a bouquet of flowers: roses, snapdragons, heathers, forget-me-nots, daisies, sunflowers, lavender. They’re stark and beautiful against the red of the dress, and Caleb is absolutely tempted to turn on his heel, walk out the door, and throw himself into the sewers because what the hell is he doing looking at Molly like this? Like he _wants_ him. Which he does, and quite terribly at that.

The sewers look so tempting right now. So, _so_ tempting.

The half-elf’s cocked his head in Caleb’s direction. Oh, hey, even the blind man can tell, although it’s probably because of his observant halfling friend. Caleb doesn’t quite meet that unseeing gaze, mostly because the half-elf’s not-staring at the door just over Caleb’s shoulder instead, but also because he can’t quite bring himself to look.

Molly’s shrugging his many-colored coat back on as the halfling talks about adjustments, measurements, tabs in pants and other things. He’s nodding along, occasionally pointing at an element of his purchases, and gesturing in a more restrained manner than his usual expansive flailing.

Then he turns and bounds up to Caleb. He does a twirl in place, and tilts his head slightly, smiling at Caleb. The message is clear: _how do I look?_

“You look happy,” says Caleb, after a moment spent reassembling the shattered remnants of his brain into something semi-functional. “It looks—Happiness looks good on you.”

Molly’s smile grows wider, and he leans in close to peck Caleb on the cheek, the same way he’s seen Molly do to Yasha a few times, so there shouldn’t be any reason for Caleb to read too much into it. Caleb’s heart actually stops for a moment anyway, as Molly brushes past him, because that heart of his doesn’t care about reason.

He breathes out, slowly. Everyone in the room is staring at him, with the sole exception of the blind man, who’s staring in his general direction, not directly at him.

“You are so gone on him,” says the halfling, with a pitying look that Caleb very much does not want to see on a stranger about his nonexistent love life or his crush on someone who’s currently fucked up because Caleb’s past just had to drag someone from his present in. “Like, _really_ gone.”

“Tell him he can come pick these up in two days,” says the half-elf, holding up the clothes left behind. “And probably that you’re in love with him while you’re at it.”

Nott squints up at Caleb. “You’re sure you’re okay?” she asks.

“Haha,” says Caleb, weakly, “funny joke, yes, I’m all right,” and he turns on his heel and walks out of the store. Molly’s found a street performer already just a block away, and has flipped them a silver while they’re strumming their lute and singing: _I’m gonna need a boost ‘cause everything else is a substitute for your love—give me a boost over heaven’s gate._

Caleb should head into the sewers right now and just live there forever, probably.

Instead, he walks up till he’s right beside Molly, who turns his head and smiles a little at him. The light catches on his hair, on the charms dangling from his horns, and Caleb’s breath catches in his throat.

_I’ve got dreams of my own,_ the bard croons, _but I want to make yours come true, so please come through, honey please, please come through—_

“So this is turning out better than the last festival,” says Caleb, faintly, fishing around for something to talk about that isn’t possibly going to raise questions from some very curious listeners. Especially not off-duty Crownsguard. “We have not tried to fight anyone yet, that already rates it much higher in my book.”

Molly huffs out a laugh, and holds his tattooed hand out to Caleb. It takes him a moment to understand, but then Molly taps the red eye of the snake and Caleb gets it.

“ _Yet_ ,” Caleb stresses, because knowing their group, they’re going to get into a fight _somehow_ , one way or the other. Molly and Beau have already fallen out of a window, it’s just a matter of time before something happens to top that, too. Most likely, it’ll involve Rattlesnake in some way. A man so feared as that is likely going to retaliate _hard_ if the Mighty Nein pull this heist off. “And if all goes well we will not have to directly confront him.” He sighs, and says, “Although, it is something of a bad idea. Do you think so?”

“I know so,” says Molly, with a huff, but he keeps his voice low and leans in closer to Caleb. “Going up against someone everyone’s scared of who’s got the bloody _Crownsguard_ in his pocket? That’s an incredibly terrible idea, and we’ve come up with some bad ideas over these past few days to fix me.”

“Have you any better ones, then?” Caleb whispers back.

“If I had any, I’d have said something,” Molly mutters. “Written something, anyway. I don’t want—I want this fixed, I want this _gone_ just as much as anyone else, but all we’re coming up with is terrible.” He sighs, tail lashing agitatedly around, and says, “I hate this. I hate dragging all of you into this mess.”

Caleb stares at him, and then says, “You haven’t dragged any of us in. You know that, right? It’s important that you know that.”

“I know that,” says Molly. “But it feels like it.”

“No, _nein_ ,” says Caleb, raking a hand through his hair, “if anything, I must apologize to you. This is my mess that you were forced into.”

Molly stays quiet, but Caleb can see his disagreement in the way his lips press together, the way he rocks back and forth on his feet, unhappy, restless, the way his tail flicks about in an agitated manner. He turns to Caleb and shakes his head.

“It _is_ ,” says Caleb, more firmly.

Molly shakes his head again, and puts his hands on Caleb’s shoulders. He opens his mouth, shuts it, then rests his forehead against Caleb’s the way he’d done with Yasha, and shakes his head.

The busker sings: _you’re the one habit I just can’t kick._

“What do you mean?” Caleb asks.

“It wasn’t your fault,” says Molly. “You didn’t fuck with my head. You haven’t asked me to do anything more than talk to you or anyone else, and you know me, I’m happy enough to do that. You didn’t torture me, put me in a dungeon, _anything_ like that. The only thing that’s connecting you to what happened to me is that you knew those people once, and what they did to me is _not_ on you, Caleb. It’s on them.”

“But I could’ve been one of them,” Caleb argues. “Can you not see that?”

“I can, yeah,” says Molly, a bright spark of fierce protectiveness flashing in his eyes as he speaks, “and frankly, I don’t care about that. It’s pretty much useless, the person you could’ve been doesn’t have any impact on who you _are_ , and you aren’t one of them now. And _now_ is what matters to me.” His hand comes up to rest on the back of Caleb’s neck. “Don’t blame yourself for this,” he says, quiet. “Any of this. Not the Shepherds, not the past seven months, none of this, Mr. Caleb.”

_Please._

“You sound like Nott,” Caleb croaks, making no move to break away. Selfish, weak, _selfish,_ to hold on to Molly like this. Someone so good and kind doesn’t deserve to be dragged down by someone like Caleb.

Molly huffs out a quiet chuckle, and makes no move to break away either. Distantly, Caleb can hear the bard still singing, _give me a boost._

There’s the sound of silver, clanking into the busker’s banged-up helmet as the song closes out. He thinks he hears Nott requesting a song, and then the lute starts up again, this time playing something slower than the last one: _you’re in my arms, and all the world is calm._

Molly’s hand winds into his, fingers intertwining with Caleb’s. They’re calloused from handling a sword, a little scarred, but steady. There’s a question in Molly’s eyes as he starts to move in, positioning himself for a dance: _is this okay?_

He should let go. He should run. He should go away and never come back and leave Mollymauk Tealeaf alone, because Caleb is such a disgusting person inside and out and Molly is _not_ , despite everything that’s been done to him.

He rests a hand on the small of Molly’s back, instead. Molly puts a hand on his shoulder, and they start to sway, _the music playing on for only two._

“Have you ever done this before?” Caleb whispers, as they sway together to the music.

Molly laughs. They’re still resting their foreheads together, and they’re so close that Caleb could kiss him, maybe, if Molly was all right with that. “I don’t think so, no,” he says. “The closest I remember is watching Gustav and Desmond dance, and they were not great at it. I’m just playing this by ear, as it were—but no better time to try than now, right? You? I remember you dancing.”

“I—suppose,” says Caleb. “ _Ja_ , I’ve done this before. In Hupperdook, with Jester, while drunk.” It’s different now, he’s dancing with Molly in the middle of a festival, and neither of them are drunk. “For a beginner, you are not very bad at this.”

A corner of Molly’s lips turns up. _A life goes by, romantic dreams must die_ so he should let this dream go, too. He should. He should.

Molly glances down at their feet for a moment, as if trying to figure out the next step. Caleb taps the small of his back and says, “No, don’t look at the ground. Let the music and your partner guide you, trust both to not steer you wrong.” Some small part of him is immediately horrified at his childhood music teacher’s words leaving his lips, but Molly looks back up and nods.

The crowds seem to have parted around them, giving them space. Or maybe that’s just Caleb. In either case, he’s glad for the space, it means he and Molly have the room to spin and twirl, and spin and twirl Molly does after a while, once they’ve graduated from swaying into actual dancing. With steps.

He’s a natural at this. Caleb barely has to correct him, although there’s something to be said for the possibility that whoever else Molly used to be, he had some skill in dance.

_And now, forever I know: all that I wanted to hold you so close—so close to reaching that famous happy end…_

He could pretend. He could indulge, for a little while, because Molly is laughing, throwing his head back and twirling around in Caleb’s arms.

_Now you’re beside me, and look how far we’ve come…_

Molly does a last spin, the bottom of his dress flaring out when he does, then Caleb finds himself with his arms wrapped around him, Molly’s back against his chest. He can hear his heartbeat in his ears, Molly’s so _close_ , and Caleb’s treacherous heart must be giving him away right now. How loud it seems, to Caleb. How obvious it must be to Molly.

_Mollymauk, can I kiss you?_

The performer strums, sings, _So far, we are so close—_ and Molly is right here, so alive and real and _warm_ , and they’re so close and Caleb could kiss him, right now, is already starting to lean in—

“Caleb! Molly!”

The spell breaks. Caleb breaks away, feels his face grow hot as he staggers back. Gods, what did he do? What did he almost do?

Jester dashes up with a bright grin, waving a bag of pastries around. “I got you guys snacks!” she says, just before Molly all but tackles her with a light laugh. “Oof, Molly! Careful, careful, you don’t want me to spill cupcakes all over the place.” She looks him up and down, and claps her hands together. “You look _great_ in that dress,” she says.

Molly preens. There’s no other word for it. He flashes a grin and does a small twirl, showing off the dress under his coat for Jester to gasp and clap at. It should clash, is the thing, with Molly’s beloved coat, but somehow Molly carries it off anyway. Maybe it’s just—Molly, somehow, shining bright and making it work just by sheer force of personality and confidence, despite how ragged he seems.

“Caleb! Nott!” Jester’s voice breaks Caleb out of his thoughts, and he blinks. Oh, right. He was staring, wasn’t he. Nott’s already come up to his side, taking a swig from her flask and swaying slightly. “Molly looks _great_ , doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, he definitely pulls it off,” says Nott, approvingly. “Right?”

Running for the sewers is looking like a great plan, right now. Caleb breathes out, and sees the soft smile on Molly’s face, the way he tucks stray strands of purple hair behind a pointed ear, like he’s waiting on Caleb to say something. He looks—incredible. And happy, relaxed in a way that makes Caleb think of Hupperdook, of Molly’s wonder-filled face in the light of the fireworks. It’s been too long, since then. It feels like a lifetime ago.

He wants to see that look again. He wants, selfishly, to be the reason it’s there.

“He looks happier than I’ve seen him in a while,” says Caleb, staring right at Molly. His memory is perfect down to every last detail, and he knows it when he sees it: the wonder from Hupperdook, like he just lit up the sky for Molly. Like Caleb is something _good_ , and light, and wonderful.

It’s nothing Caleb deserves, but for the moment, just for the moment, he lets that thought go. If Molly’s happy, then what does _deserve_ matter?

“Wow, Molly, you really went all-out on the shopping trip, didn’t you,” says Beau as she walks up, a meat pie in her hand, and the moment shatters. Molly turns and preens again, with a tad more smugness this time in his movements, and Caleb looks away to Jester and Nott.

“He really does,” says Jester, but her smile’s faded away to something more pensive and worried, as she’s watching Molly and Beau falling back into their usual dynamic, just with more flailing around from Molly. Behind them, Caleb’s fairly certain Yasha and Fjord are trying to bargain with a man selling meat pies and—threatening to cut his own throat? Huh. Some people will do anything to sell their wares, he supposes. “Caleb? I think I need to talk to you and Nott for a moment. It’s really important, it’s about—” She stops, looks around, then tugs Caleb closer so she can whisper in his ear: “It’s about Astrid.”

\--

They don’t talk about Astrid right away, of course.

The place is super public, anyway, so the first thing Jester does is declare herself to be Officially Hungry and Ready for Lunch. The second is chivvy everyone back to the inn, and they make a weird little troop when they walk back in, Yasha’s meat pie half-hanging out of her mouth as Beau tells Molly about the time she and Jester and Clay totally wrecked a Real Castle breaking Nott out of a dungeon cell. Jester contributes like, sometimes, mostly to remind Beau about the fact that if it wasn’t for her lollipop, she and Clay would be in lots of trouble right now.

Man, she really misses Clay. She could use his help, here.

“Ah, hell, we’re gonna have to actually find a table,” Beau grumbles, staring at all the crowded tables. “I hate the lunch rush.”

Molly pats her consolingly on the back. It’s nice to have him back, even mute. Then he grabs Yasha and prances off ‘cause he did catch sight of a table, and Jester watches everyone head towards the table. Frumpkin follows after Molly, clearly intent on stalking Molly’s tail. Caleb is last, taking up the rear with Nott, but he stumbles when Jester catches his sleeve.

“ _Was ist_ —oh, Jester,” he says. “You wanted to talk?”

Jester nods, and jerks a thumb over to the door outside. “There’s an alleyway we could talk in,” she says, quietly. “I don’t wanna talk about this with Molly right now, ‘cause he’d be upset, and—and you saw how happy he was.” She looks over at Molly, laughing so hard as Beau tries to swing her fancy new sword around without falling over that he’s leaning on Fjord for support, and it sounds like a bell, ringing through the air, musical and light.

Caleb nods, and says, “Let’s go, then. I—have some information I just found, anyway, that I’ve been meaning to give.”

“He went after Verrin,” says Nott as they walk outside, and Jester blinks down at her. Then she glances back behind her, but Molly doesn’t seem to have heard them. “Yeah, she _knew Astrid_! She has a friend who works for her, and also, she had weird blood powers! Like Molly. Except not like Molly.”

“It’s far more complicated than that,” says Caleb, and he steers them both into the alleyway. It’s very grimy and gross, Jester steps in something that she very much _hopes_ is just a congealing pool of blood. “But yes, she does have a friend who works for Astrid. In fact Verrin used to be a pupil of hers, too, and her, ah, _weird blood powers_ were a very significant factor in that apprenticeship.”

“ _What_ ,” says Jester.

“Wait,” says Nott, “she didn’t tell us that! What did you do to make her tell you?” She’s looking up at Caleb now with wide eyes, and Jester’s already dragging her haversack around so she can dig out her sketchbook and pencil. This is Important Information, the kind of evidence or detectiving technique that could make or break a case, and Jester has to take notes.

“I bought her a round of drinks,” says Caleb, and Nott groans. “I was running out of spells, and I needed to find Nott and Molly afterwards.”

Jester writes down _bribery = effective method of information extraction_. Then she looks up at Caleb, then down at Nott, and says, “So who wants to go first? I have some things I want to ask, but you guys have new information that I definitely want to hear.” Especially about Verrin, who’s a lot more connected to this than Jester thought she was. And Astrid, whose voice still echoes in the back of Jester’s mind. She really did think it was _right_ , to make Molly suffer so much for something he couldn’t even remember.

Her pencil doesn’t break in her hand, but it’s a very near thing.

“Let’s hear you first,” says Nott, “and then we can compare notes!”

“Okay,” says Jester. “Do you guys know anything about a book that could steer people’s destinies?”

No recognition flashes across Caleb’s face, or Nott’s. Caleb just shrugs and says, “ _Nein_. Why do you ask?”

“Because that Lucien guy was really determined to get it,” says Jester, and both her friends stiffen at the mention of Molly’s old life, the name belonging to a man long dead. “Super determined. Like, throw a lot of people under an oncoming carriage, determined.” It makes her stomach churn with nausea, knowing the person Molly came from, knowing how dark and callous and cruel he had been compared to Molly, so kind and bright and good. Molly doesn’t deserve to have to deal with the fallout of the things Lucien did. He didn’t even know _anything_. “And Astrid made Molly pay for it,” she says, quietly, rage bubbling up in her chest.

There’s no sound in the alleyway for a long time.

Then Nott says, with feeling, “ _Fuck._ ”

“That tracks,” says Caleb, tiredly. “She knew how to hold a grudge, even when we were younger, but back then she wasn’t so extreme. She learned to be under Trent.” The unspoken _we all did_ hangs in the air between them, but Jester can’t see it—Caleb isn’t like Astrid, isn’t talking about the Empire like it’s the only thing that matters, and fuck everything else. Caleb and Beau and Nott went into hell to find her and Fjord and Yasha, despite mourning Molly too, and Jester doesn’t think Astrid would do that, not for anyone. “What else?”

“How good is she with daggers?” Jester asks. “Because we fought a little in Molly’s head, when I was trying out Remove Curse. And she had daggers, besides a lot of acid spells. A little like Cali.”

“The daggers are new, but from what I’ve been told, she picked them up some time after our graduation,” says Caleb. “Verrin was kind enough to warn me she’d dip them in poison beforehand. From what she’s said, it’s become a necessity for warmages to have another fallback besides their magic.”

“But Yonnah didn’t,” Nott points out. “He just flung fireballs around.”

“Yonnah’s fallback was Mollymauk,” says Caleb, and a chill runs up Jester’s spine. “He was supposed to take the casters out. It’s a strategy employed to make certain that anything you cast will not be interfered with, either because of Dispel Magic or a Counterspell.” He chuckles, mirthlessly, and tugs the collar of his coat up. “We fucked that up for him, though, when we called Mollymauk by name.”

“It didn’t exactly help,” says Nott. “He did still try to kill you. And Beau. And Jester.”

Jester shivers at the memory: Molly ducking under her lollipop, one of the eyes on his skin bursting as he pointed at her. The next moment when her lollipop cracked into his skull, she’d _felt_ it too, that flash of pain making everything go white for just a moment.

“But he was more erratic about it,” says Caleb. “Desperate, more prone to mistakes, less efficient. If we hadn’t known him, said his name, we would be dead.”

The cold chill prickles up the back of Jester’s neck. She can imagine it all too well.

What had happened to Molly in those seven months? Why had it all happened to him? Jester doesn’t know, only has conjecture and guesses to go off of, and she doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like this. Any of this, at all. Her hand drifts down to her holy symbol, and her fingers brush over the arch. _Why Molly? Why him?_

No answer.

“I saw something in Molly’s head, and it involved that book,” she begins, changing the subject to something more like what she wanted to talk about, and tells them everything: Lucien, Astrid, the deal, the fight, Astrid’s assertion that Lucien deserved this. _Lucien_ , not Molly, not the person who’d told her fortunes and made her laugh and died trying to get to her, trying to save her. “She’s a shitty person,” she finishes. “Maybe she was nicer once, but she’s really shitty now. She called him Lucien, and she made him remember things he didn’t want to.” She pauses, remembering: Caleb had danced with Astrid, once. They had been friends. Maybe he’d even loved her. “Sorry,” she adds.

Caleb shakes his head, and says, “Don’t be, Jester. The Astrid I knew, the one I danced with, died a very, very long time ago.” There’s still a grief there, she can hear it in his voice, but it’s not the grief she felt when Beau said _he didn’t survive the trip_ , not even the grief she still feels sometimes when she looks at Molly and catches sight of half-healed scars and almost-bare horns. It’s an old pain in Caleb’s voice, dulled and worn away by time and acceptance. “Whatever’s left is someone dangerous, who will not hesitate for a second to use any advantage she has against us. And she has _plenty_.”

“But we have the element of surprise,” Nott says.

“ _For a time,_ ” Caleb stresses. “And I don’t like the idea of going up against her now. From what Verrin has told us, she has an apprentice cleric on her side.”

“Verrin’s friend,” Nott supplies. “Someone named Janie. Janille.”

“She also said that as far as she knew her friend was only brought in for the aftermath of the interrogations, although Mollymauk said otherwise when she asked him,” says Caleb. “If my memory serves me right here—”

“Your memory’s always right,” says Nott.

“Not in this,” says Caleb, “I told you, Ikithon tampered with my memory at least once, I—I am not always certain something truly happened the way I remember it, when he is involved—”

“Is she blonde?” says Jester, and her voice sounds distant even to her. The petite little half-elf cleric in the bakery, speaking of the Academy with such reverence—she knew it. She _knew_ it. She _knew_ Janille was hiding something big, something that had to do with Molly.

“Um,” says Nott.

“Yes?” Caleb says, uncertain.

“Short?” says Jester, holding her hand out to just an inch taller than herself.

“Uh, yes,” says Nott. “How’d you know?”

“Half-elf?” says Jester.

Nott gasps. “She didn’t say anything about that!” she says. “She just said she was blonde, short, and good at healing.”

“We met her in a bakery before we found you guys,” says Jester, mind spinning through everything she heard Janille say, searching for something, anything. Who is she really? Is Fjord walking into a trap? What does she know? Does Jester have to come back Fjord up? Does Yasha? Oh, gods, _Molly_ , what if Janille sees Molly, what if she somehow snaps him back to the scared half-feral version that tried to kill them, what if—

“Jester?” Nott’s voice breaks through, her hand tugging at Jester’s sleeve, and Jester blinks and looks down at her pencil. “Jester, are you all right?”

Oh.

She broke it.

She opens her fist and lets the pencil’s remnants fall to the ground. “Oh,” she says, before she summons up the strength for a smile. “I’m okay! I’m just very strong and sometimes pencils snap. You know.” She hums, picking splinters out of her hand, and even her humming sounds discordant to her, shaky and out of tune, like a lute with its strings wound too tightly.

Nott tugs her sleeve downward, more insistent now. “Don’t pick at it, let me help,” she says, and Jester can’t do anything but crouch down to let Nott have access to her hand. She feels Caleb’s hand gently resting on her shoulder, but he doesn’t say a word. “It’s not too bad,” says Nott, pulling out some bandages and wrapping them around Jester’s hand once she’s picked out the splinters. “You could heal yourself up later.”

“No, I can’t waste a spell,” says Jester, so, so aware that she’s the only cleric, right now. Clay is too far away for them to reach, if things go wrong. “This is just—stuff I can deal with, I’ve got the herbs, I’ll be okay. I’m okay. Really.”

“We can save this talk for later if you want,” says Caleb, and no, no, no, they can’t save this talk, they have to have it _now_. They have a lot of things to do today and Jester’s sure they’re going to be overwhelmed and they have to straighten this out as soon as possible, so they can help Molly as fast as they can. “You do not seem okay.”

“I’m fine,” says Jester, standing up now. “No, we can’t have this talk later. Let’s have it now: Fjord, Yasha and I met Janie in a bakery, and she’s from the Soltryce Academy, and she’s _Astrid’s_ apprentice. We know where she’s staying, she said it was the Shield’s Grace inn.”

“Same one as the dragonborn selling piraguas,” says Nott, thoughtfully, “right, Caleb?”

“Yes, that one, so at least you will have something to look forward to if you head there,” says Caleb. “Have you tried piraguas yet? They seem somewhat popular here.”

Jester’s brow furrows. She’s heard the term a couple of times since she’s come here to Lynbroke, but she’s never seen a piragua before. At least she thinks so. Who knows, maybe it’s just another name for a particular sweet she’s already tried. “What are those?” she asks anyway.

“They’re cups of shaved ice that you flavor with whatever you like, and they’re very sweet,” says Caleb. “There was a dragonborn selling them, on our way to the library.”

“He was nice,” says Nott. “You’d like him. You’d like his piraguas, Molly did.”

Jester breathes in, then out. Her hand drops again to her holy symbol, and it grows warm in her grip. She lets go of it, lets it hang. “I’d love to try them,” she says, truthfully. “But first, you guys have to stop trying to distract me. We _need_ to share information if we’re going to crack this case.” She tries not to let her frustration creep in a whole lot, because they’re just trying to help her in their own ways, she knows that. They did this same thing after the kidnapping, after Molly, and she’d thought it was nice of them to try to cheer her up, make her think of other things that weren’t so awful.

“She’s got a point,” says Nott.

Caleb sighs. “All right,” he says. “Verrin has told me some things about Astrid that I hadn’t expected to hear, from what I remember of her.” His hand drops from her shoulder, and he sticks it in his pocket, chewing on his bottom lip. “She could make you forget that you had been charmed, or forget time that you spent charmed. She couldn’t do that when I knew her—she was never very subtle, she didn’t like to be. But it seems as if she’s learned to be.” A ghost of a smile touches his lips, but there’s no humor to it, no cheer. “I think Ikithon did manage to break through to her, after all.”

It’s chilling to know. It’s even more chilling to think that it might’ve been used on Caleb when he was just a _boy_ , or on Molly, scared and vulnerable. Or on anyone else.

Jester presses her lips into a thin line. “We talked to Janille,” she says. “She said something weird—about how the strongest fires forge the strongest swords. Except Yasha shot that down, did you know she used to help with blacksmithing sometimes?”

“No, but honestly, at this point, nothing can surprise me about her,” says Nott. “She’s _very_ mysterious.”

“Only through the strongest fires,” Caleb says, distantly, like he’s reading off a book somewhere, like he’s repeating something someone else told him once upon a time, “can the strongest swords be forged.” He shakes his head, and huffs out a breath. “Our teachers used to say that to us. Trent used to tell us this every time we trained.”

Dread drops into her stomach, a heavy weight of cold lead sitting in place of her beloved pastries. “So she’s—”

Caleb shakes his head, and says, “It doesn’t mean she’s past the point of no return. Has she graduated yet?”

“Um, no, I don’t think so,” says Jester. “She just said she was from the Soltryce Academy. But that’s dangerous enough, isn’t it?” The Academy—oh, gods, she’d gotten Fjord a letter of recommendation to the Academy. The fear slithers into her chest, around her lungs, and squeezes so tight she can barely breathe. She can’t let the Academy have Fjord. They took Caleb and shattered him and left him in an asylum to rot, stole Molly and broke _him_ and left him scared and scarred and silent, they can’t take Fjord too. They _can’t_ , she won’t _let them._

Nott’s hand presses into hers. “It’s very bad already,” she says.

“Fjord’s gonna go talk to her,” says Jester, thinking of Fjord beside her in the cage, “and it’s going to be _very bad_ if she’s really not as nice as she was in the bakery—”

“She won’t touch him,” says Caleb, fiercely. “None of us will let the Academy have him, Jester, _versprochen_. The Assembly won’t have Fjord, or Yasha, or any one of us.” There’s a conviction in his voice that Jester doesn’t usually associate with him, he’s usually so quiet and willing to just go with what the group decides, but she’s—glad, really, that he feels as strongly as she does about this. “We will not lose anyone else to the Assembly.”

“If they try we’ll fuck them up,” Nott adds.

“What she said,” says Caleb.

Jester can’t help it, she smiles a little. “Okay,” she says, and she’s not even lying this time. “Okay, okay.” Then she huffs out a breath. “What else did you hear about Astrid?” she asks, to get them back on track.

“She’s teaching now,” says Caleb. “That you already knew. Verrin said she’d also been taking an interest in some of the darker magics used in the field, lately, trying to figure out how to counter them. And in the blood hunter orders, although—from what you’ve said about what you’ve seen in Mollymauk’s head, that interest is much older than the war.” He huffs out a breath. “It’s strange. I didn’t realize the Assembly was interested in having blood hunters, we were always told in the Academy that they were unnatural, just a step away from becoming the abominations they hunted down.”

She can’t see that, with Molly, not even with how he came back to them still fresh in her mind. She can only see him pulling a card and showing it to her, grinning at her, _I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a group of people more in need of a good time_. She can only see the delight on his face, how happy he’d looked twirling around in a nice dress and his coat. Why would anyone look at Molly, and think him just a step away from a monster?

“Maybe they changed their minds?” Nott guesses, and that’s a possibility, people change their minds all the time. “Or—there is a war on, and we’ve seen what Molly can do, what Verrin can do. They might think that’s useful, especially up against the kinds of things the cricks could do.”

Jester flexes her hand, and winces a little at the stab of pain that shoots through her palm. “Like in _Courting of the Crick_ ,” she says. “The assassin could summon _undead_ , it was right in the beginning, and it was one of the scariest parts of the book.” She glances at Caleb and says, “Could they do that? Like, in real life?”

“It was a possibility we were told about,” Caleb hedges, brow furrowing as he thinks. “But it wouldn’t be something an assassin like the one in _Courting_ could do. That was only done to establish her as a credible threat. Here and now, that would be something only one of the more powerful mages under the Xhorhasian Empire could do. Necromancy like that, it requires more skill than an assassin would need.”

Jester glances down at Nott, and sees the same realization dawning in her co-detective’s golden eyes. Molly’s good at tracking shit down, when he wants to be. Molly’s good at _killing_ shit, too, especially if they’re undead—Yasha’s told them a couple of times, when the grief from Molly’s death had eased off, about the time the both of them had re-killed a couple of zombies in the dead of night because the circus was camping out near a graveyard and coincidentally there was a crazy necromancer trying to bring his dead dog back, too. Molly’s good at fighting, and sometimes good at sneaking, and Astrid has a bone to pick and maybe even a need for a blood hunter to fill.

“When did Verrin say she used to be Astrid’s students?” Nott asks, beating Jester to the question that’s popped into her head just then. “And did she say when it ended?”

“Eight months ago she fell out with her friend, but I had the feeling she ended her apprenticeship sooner than that,” says Caleb, and the pieces slide into place in Jester’s head. Verrin left at least eight months ago, maybe longer than that. Molly died almost exactly seven months ago, and isn’t that still a kick in the heart to think, that he’s been dead (or Away as she’s starting to think of it now) longer than Jester’s known him. Verrin has weird blood powers, Molly has weird blood powers _and_ a past life that’s made Astrid very angry at him. Verrin came and then left, or fell out, of her own volition, and Molly—

She thinks of the red strings tied around Molly’s body so tightly they drew blood, the pained gasps when he moved, the blood seeping into her not-real clothes. _I hate this, I hate being trapped like this._ He pulled a card and smiled at her and made her laugh in the middle of a fight and died, died, _died_ trying to free her.

“Molly went down seven months ago,” she says. “And then he crawled out of his grave. And Astrid found him, because she needed another person who could do crazy stuff with their blood and she knew him.” It makes sense. It makes an awful kind of sense. It makes Jester want to track Astrid down and smack her with a lollipop, then grab her arm and cast Inflict Wounds at the highest level, see how _she_ likes it.

But that wouldn’t really help Molly, right here, right now, it would just take Jester out of the picture fast. Yonnah had been dumb and underestimated them and thought _oh hey let’s make Molly do all the work_ , like a total dumbass. Jester’s not going to make the mistake of underestimating Astrid—maybe she isn’t subtle, fine, and she’s definitely impatient and a complete asshole, but if she got handpicked with Caleb and somebody else to be super elite warmages, she’s very smart. Not _Caleb_ smart, as Nott would put it, but smart.

Nott says, “That _bitch._ ” Then she pauses, and adds, with her face scrunching up in that really apologetic way, “Sorry, Caleb.”

“She killed her parents too,” says Caleb, which is still a horrifying thing to say so casually. Is he okay? Jester wants him to be okay. Jester wants him and Molly to be okay, somehow, but she knows in her bones that it’s going to take them both a long time to get there, if they ever will. She’s still not okay, either, after the Shepherds, but she likes to think she’s getting better. She hopes Caleb is, too, and Molly will. “We’re terrible people, her and me and Eodwulf.”

Okay, maybe Caleb is not actually getting a lot better.

Nott says, very pleasantly, “Caleb?”

“ _Ja?_ ”

“Are you planning on brainwashing anyone and making them do your bidding?” says Nott.

“No!” says Caleb, whipping around to stare at her, wide-eyed.

“Are you planning on killing anyone who doesn’t deserve it? Or making Molly do stuff he doesn’t want to?” says Jester.

“No!” says Caleb, growing horrified and agitated, practically retreating into his coat like he just wants the ground to swallow him up now. “ _Nein, auf keinen Fall_, to both, why are you _asking_ all of this—”

“You’re not a terrible person,” Jester informs him. “Not right now. Maybe you were in the past, but you’re not a terrible person now.”

“He was brainwashed,” Nott points out after taking a sip from her flask, which, valid point, but then that’s why she said _maybe_. “But she’s right, you aren’t a terrible person. You were manipulated by someone you trusted into doing something you thought would make them proud of you, that doesn’t make _you_ terrible. That makes you the victim.”

“Victims don’t _kill their family_ ,” Caleb says, stressing the last words. “They do not—it doesn’t matter that I broke afterwards, at the time I did it, I wanted to do it. I am a horrible, disgusting person—”

“But you’re _not_ ,” says Jester. “You helped save us! You’re helping Molly!”

“ _I used people like Mollymauk_ ,” Caleb snaps out at them, voice choking with pain and hatred at himself. “Traitors, disgusting people, with skills we needed who got what they deserved—I _used them_ to help me track down other traitors, made them do my bidding. I am not any different from Astrid simply because I _broke_ —”

“But would you do it now?” says Nott, standing her ground and looking up at Caleb, with kindness in her eyes, her voice soft but firm as she asks. She’s making for a great mom, Jester can see that. “Would you do it to Molly?”

“No!” says Caleb, just as heated.

“Then you’re different from her,” says Jester, with a shrug. “It’s not hard to get.”

Caleb opens his mouth, then shuts it. For a moment Jester thinks that means it’s sunk in for him, means he’s letting their words wash over him and sink into his skull.

Then he turns on his heel and says, roughly, “We should get back, they must be waiting on us right now.” He marches out the alleyway like a soldier, away from her and Nott, hunching his shoulders under his coat and drawing up the collar.

Jester says, trying not to let her annoyance and frustration creep into her tone and failing miserably, “Is he always like this when you try to tell him stuff like that?”

“Yes,” says Nott, with a sigh, as she takes another swig from her flask. There’s a little crease of concern between her brows, and she chews on her lower lip, rocks back and forth on her feet. “Sort of. He was getting better about this, a little bit—I think maybe it’s this whole thing with Astrid and Molly, it’s setting him back.”

Well, Jester can’t blame him, she supposes. “It’s super stressful, I guess,” she says. “But still.” She sighs.

“Thanks, though,” says Nott. “For backing me up.”

“I don’t think it did a lot of good,” Jester says, as the two of them start down the alleyway, following in Caleb’s footsteps. Her stomach grumbles, somewhat. Yeah, she does need to eat lunch. Hopefully her friends left some of the really good food for her.

“It did,” says Nott. “A little bit. If it’s just me he’s not as inclined to listen, because, well, I’m just one person, but if there’s other people backing me up then maybe he’ll pay attention.”

It’s sound logic.

But Jester thinks of the Shepherds, of Molly’s death. Fjord blamed himself, still does, and in truth some small part of Jester can’t help but think—if she’d been quicker, if she’d gotten out somehow, if she’d been _better_ , maybe Molly would still be okay.

Sometimes logic doesn’t stand up to what one _knows_ , deep in their heart of hearts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> art embedded in chapter made by [ineffablewitch](http://ineffablewitch.tumblr.com/post/181691255843/a-completed-flats-commission-for-widomauk-i-just), commissioned by Ali for me sobs softly. _they're so good._


	15. watch the fires rise under my skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from the Brothers Bright's "Blood on My Name".

Molly’s hand slaps against the table, and he shoves the notebook at Fjord with enough force that the table rocks a little. Beau’s kind of impressed, really. He’d never been that strong before, but apparently this is important enough to warrant a burst of strength like nothing she’s ever seen out of him.

“ _You can all—already teleport, asshole_ —okay,” says Fjord, already standing up, “listen, will y’all just _listen_ , I didn’t take the sword because I wanted to teleport, I took it because I wanted to keep your memory with me—”

Molly gives a derisive snort and shakes his head. He snatches up his pencil again and scribbles in his notebook, and turns it around: _ok wher is it then?_

“Right, yeah, about _that_ ,” says Fjord, already sweating under Molly’s pouty face. Beau snickers to herself, then grins when Fjord looks beseechingly at her, like he thinks she’s going to help him and not be thoroughly entertained by this hot mess. “Uh, well, listen, Molls—”

Molly underlines his question twice, and taps the pencil against the paper. Beside him, Yasha’s shoulders are shaking with suppressed laughter, and she’s making these cute little giggly sounds that Beau’s paying a little bit of attention to. It’s not—Yasha sounds kind of squeaky and happy when she’s trying her hardest to not laugh at someone. It’s a weirdly nice sound, and from anyone else it would be off-putting. From Yasha it’s just, well, it makes her sound lovelier. Beau kind of wants to make her laugh like that, maybe.

“Little help here, Beau?” says Fjord, and Beau reluctantly looks away from Yasha to Fjord’s pleading face.

She stares at him, then at Molly’s expectant face. Then she leans back in her chair and takes a long, slow sip of her glass of water.

“I don’t know how your shit works,” she says, “you’re the best person to explain just where his sword’s gone.”

Yasha’s fist thuds against the wood of the table as she bends over, stifling her giggles. Beau grins at her, feeling something warm bloom in her chest and rise up to her cheeks. She’s a real pretty woman, Yasha.

Fjord just groans. Molly, impatient, flicks a bit of bread at his forehead, and taps the question with his pencil again. For good measure, he encircles the whole thing and adds an extra question mark.

“Okay, okay,” Fjord grumbles, sitting down again. “I, uh. I sorta. Well, you know when you saw that, uh, thing with the rock? When my falchion changed, so you saw the rock in the middle of the hilt?” He sighs. “I sort of. Took your sword into my falchion, I guess is the best way to put it. Now it’s a part of me.”

Molly stares at him, long and hard, with an expression so deeply betrayed that Beau actually feels kind of bad for both of them. Then he tears off a chunk of bread in one hand and chucks it at Fjord, and that’s just the funniest thing Beau’s seen in months—the laughter rises in her chest and floats into her throat and out her mouth, like bubbles. She laughs, her fist thudding against the table, making their food and water spill every so often.

 _magic swords dont gro on trees ford,_ Molly writes, all the while, as Yasha breaks into a full-blown fit of laughter.

“I was mourning you!” Fjord huffs, defensively, picking up the chunk of bread Molly tossed at him. He tosses it back, but Molly snatches it out of the air with ease and takes a bite.

_that was the fancyest magic sword I ever saw in my lief ford._

“I know, Molly, I know, but I wanted to keep something of yours safe and with us—”

 _I want my sword back ford._ For good measure, he underlines it three times and encircles it. Somehow his pouty face has gotten even _poutier_ , Beau hadn’t even realized that was possible until now. _baring that I will take any other magic sword if we cant bring mine back but I want my sword back ford you dick._

“I’ll figure out a way to give it back,” says Fjord, with a pained look in his eye. Beau cackles, because that’s really the only thing she can do right now, and anyway, if she were asked, she’d say Fjord deserves this. He’d cut the head off that mind flayer she was about to punch to death, four months ago, because that damn sword can let him _teleport_. Fucker can _already_ teleport. “Or replace it. We’ll, hell, we’ll go shopping for a magic sword if you really want one, once all this clears up.”

Molly narrows his eyes at him. He flips back a page and taps the words _magic swords dont gro on trees_ , then scribbles out, _or pop up in random shops for 1 gp._

“I’ll pay,” says Yasha, finally starting to recover from her laughing fit. There’s a sizable dent in the wood where her fist kept pounding in, and she’s grinning at Molly. It’s bright, like a flash of lightning across a dark sky, and Beau finds that she can’t look away. She could go blind, looking right at something so bright. “Don’t worry, Fjord, I’ll take him shopping for magic swords, once everything clears up.”

Fjord slumps into his seat and says, “God, _please_. Really don’t feel like shopping.” He glances at Molly, with a look on his face that says he dreads going shopping with Molly. Or going shopping at all. Beau can’t blame him, they’re terrible at keeping to their shopping lists.

Molly doesn’t write anything, but puts his pen and notebook down and forms a little heart shape with his hands, looking right at Yasja. Then he clambers closer to her to press a kiss to her cheek. She huffs out a small laugh, and gently pushes him off once he’s pecked her cheek. They’re still comfortable with each other even now, Yasha’s walls crumbling down around Molly like they’re made of paper instead of stone, and Beau feels her heart twist into a knot. She wants—She wants that, she thinks. She wants Yasha’s walls to come down around her, too, the same way they do for Molly.

Yasha glances at her, and Beau looks away, just in time to spot Caleb coming into the tavern. There’s a stormy look on his face, and his shoulders are hunched up under his coat as he stomps over to their table.

“You okay?” Fjord asks.

“I’m all right,” Caleb says, shortly, pulling up a chair to sit beside Fjord. He snaps his fingers, and Frumpkin disappears from under the table, where he’s been curled against Beau’s ankle, and reappears on Caleb’s lap. “What happened? What was everyone talking about?”

“What were you guys talking about?” Beau asks, propping an elbow up onto the table. “You and Jester and Nott. Something up?”

Caleb lets out a breath. “Can we talk about it later?” he asks, _pleads_. “It is—It is important, but I am hungry right now. Did you save anything for me?”

Molly pushes the half-full plate of roast chicken across to Caleb. The pout’s gone now, replaced by a look of real concern. Beau’s not surprised, Caleb generally looks like a really strong breeze could knock him over. Actually Molly kind of does, too, right now, what the fuck have those people been feeding him where they kept him? Cold gruel? Shit, that’s just depressing.

“ _Danke_ ,” Caleb mumbles, and digs in.

“It wasn’t much,” says Yasha. “We were just—catching Molly up on what happened. We were on that thing with the mind flayer.”

“And we were talking about Fjord using Summer’s Dance, and now Molly’s pissed at him,” Beau adds. “Which he deserves.”

“You’re not _still_ mad about me getting that mind flayer?” Fjord huffs. “He was gonna kill you.”

“I _had him._ ” Beau points a finger at Molly and says, “You just keep yelling at him for your sword back so he won’t poof in and out of existence again and take all the credit for my hard work.” She grins when Molly nods, vigorously, with an incredibly grave expression on his face like they’re discussing battle plans and not getting Molly his shitty magic sword back. Or a shitty magic sword at all.

“We do not even know how Fjord’s falchion absorbs other swords,” says Caleb. “He had the sword from the drow in the sewers, but the properties of that sword seem to have disappeared in favor of Summer’s Dance. Where did it go? And if you were to attune to another sword, where would Summer’s Dance go?”

“Search me, I don’t fuckin’ know how any of this shit works,” Fjord grumbles, as Jester and Nott bounce up to their table. Jester scrambles over Fjord and Caleb to sit next to Beau, and Nott clambers up onto Caleb to squeeze herself in between him and Fjord.

Molly points at Fjord, then at himself, and mimes swinging a sword around. Yasha tilts her head to the side, letting Molly’s hand swing past her cheek harmlessly.

It takes Beau a moment to work out what Molly’s trying to say. God, this charades thing gets real old real quick. “You think it’ll come back to you?” she asks, and Molly nods. “That’s not a guarantee. As far as we know, the last sword didn’t really come back to its owner.”

“Its owner’s dead,” Nott points out. “Molly’s not.”

 _Molly’s not dead._ The thought of it, after seven months of thinking him dead, fits strangely now in Beau’s head. He’s been gone longer than she knew him, really, if she thinks about it, but the grief still lingers. Yeah, even now, present tense, even with Molly around reminding her of just how annoying he can be sometimes.

She’s adjusting. They all are. And honestly, she’d rather adjust to having Molly back, even so fucked up, than not have him around at all.

Jester says, “Maybe they’re in a pocket dimension in Fjord’s stomach!”

Molly’s utterly horrified look is enough to break Beau again, sending her into a fit of laughter.

“ _Sag etwas,_ Mollymauk,” she hears Caleb say, with a flat tone she knows is the one he uses when he thinks something is going to be hilarious. Usually their senses of humor don’t entirely match up, because Caleb’s even more of a hot mess than Beau and no one really knows if he’s ever joking or not, but on this one point, she knows for a fact they’re both going to find this funny.

Sure enough: “ _Why would you say that,_ ” says Molly, “oh, gods, _no_. How am I going to get my sword back if it’s stuck in a pocket dimension anchored in Fjord’s stomach? Fjord, you bloody fucking bastard, you can already teleport! Don’t get greedy on the rest of us, especially not me, I got that sword fair and square! Or, all right, Caleb gave me that sword, but my point stands, that’s my sword, get it out of your stomach!”

Beau almost falls out of her chair, clutching her sides and wheezing. God, her ribs hurt so bad from laughing, she’s missed hearing this asshole’s voice.

“It is _not_ in my stomach,” huffs Fjord.

“ _Sag etwas,_ Mollymauk,” says Caleb, turning a page. Beau is pretty sure he’s laughing at them on the inside. Hard to tell with his hair and shitty scarf screening his face from view.

“It is absolutely in your stomach!” says Molly, jumping to his feet and pointing at Fjord, so dramatic in his anger that Beau’s pretty sure he’s not really all that angry, just playing it up for effect. “Or in a pocket dimension in your stomach! You said it was a part of you now!”

“Yeah, and I don’t know how to make it _not_ a part of me!”

“You said you never wanted to part with it ever because it was the only link you had to Molly,” says Nott, biting into a chicken thigh. “I mean, yeah, I could be paraphrasing but that’s the gist of what you said.”

Molly opens his mouth, shuts it, and pumps his fist up and down an imaginary dick in Fjord’s direction with an indignant huff. Jester giggles, and her hand smacks against Beau’s shoulder as she leans against her for support. Beau holds in a hiss of pain, because _shit_ is Jester stronger than she is.

“I think it would be best for all of us if we did research on how your sword works,” says Caleb, over Fjord’s spluttering and the rest of the Nein’s raucous laughter. He has to raise his voice a couple of notches to compete, that’s how loud they are, and Beau can see that Molly’s just barely holding back his own grin as he settles back into his seat. “Mollymauk is like one of those birds, the ones that like to hoard, he will not be satisfied until you either give him his sword back or get him a new one.”

Molly holds up a finger, grabs his notebook and pencil again, flips to a page, and underlines the word _magic_.

“A new magical one,” Caleb corrects. “He is a—there’s a word for that bird in Common, I know, but I only remember the Zemnian term—”

“Albatross?” Fjord says. “Used to have to chase ‘em off all the time, else they’d steal whatever they could get their little talons into.”

“Pigeon,” says Nott. “Good eating on pigeons, plus they _like_ to hoard shit.”

 _not a pijon,_ Molly writes. _pea-cock._

“Do peacocks hoard? I don’t think they hoard,” Jester says. “I think those are ravens. They like hoarding stuff, especially shiny shit.”

“You’re thinking crows,” says Beau. “They’re different from ravens.”

“I read about—giant pink birds, once,” says Yasha, drumming her fingers on the table. “With curved beaks,” and she demonstrates by curving her hand down in front of her nose and mouth, “kind of like this, and—um, they hoarded too. I don’t know what they were called, but I think they were more common around the Menagerie Coast—”

“Molly doesn’t _look_ like a flamingo,” says Jester, tilting her head at Molly. Beau snorts out a laugh, then glances at Molly herself, sees him shaking his head and tucking his hair back behind his ear, tapping the peacock feathers curling up the side of his face. Lestra’s still got flowers curling up her face the same way, but Lestra’s tattoos don’t have little scars here and there, interrupting the design, and Beau wonders suddenly if Molly’s _noticed_ the scars. Shit, no way he hasn’t.

Caleb shakes his head, and says, “ _Elster_ , that’s what they called it in Zemnian. There’s a poem about them in Zemnian, but the translation into Common goes something like, _one for sorrow, two for joy…_ ”

Beau sees it first before anyone else does: the way Molly freezes in place at the word, the vague amusement and cheer dropping away from him, his pencil dropping onto the table. His eyes go wide and panicked, and then _blank_ and unfocused. Her hand grabs the hilt of the ornamental sword Yasha’d won, a lead weight of dread dropping into her stomach.

It’s Yasha who notices after Beau does, while Caleb’s going on about the poem. She turns, frowns at Molly, and nudges his shoulder with her hand.

It happens too fast. One moment Molly’s just blankly staring at them and Yasha’s trying to nudge him awake, and the next he’s grabbed a fork and jabbed up into her neck with a _snarl_. She grabs his wrist before he can stab it into her neck, but the tines manage to break the skin anyway, and she swears as she tries to push Molly _off_ —

Caleb’s already standing, a hand digging into his pocket as he’s muttering something in Zemnian with wide eyes, but it’s Fjord who pushes past him and summons the falchion, the golden glimmer of Summer’s Dance shining for just a moment as seawater sprays out, onto the table and onto Molly, who whips around with a growl as Yasha successfully shoves him off of her with a snarl of her own.

“Molly, come on, Molly, it’s just _us_ ,” Fjord starts.

Molly drags the fork across his skin with a hiss of pain, tines breaking through lavender and freezing over. Then he launches himself at Fjord, ducking past a bolt of bright light and coming up to stab down. Fjord swears, and reverses the falchion in his hand as the fork sparks off his armor, his pommel slamming into Molly’s cheek and sending him right into Nott. Nott curses and dances away as Molly’s staggering to his feet, but Beau’s already on her feet and getting in his space. They need to finish this, quick, people are _looking_ their way.

God, Molly would be so unhappy if this drew a damn crowd.

The fork stabs into Beau’s bicep, and she hisses in pain, but kicks out Molly’s knee anyway. The sword’s in her hand and she hefts it up, slams the pommel into his head while he’s down. He collapses to the ground, and Beau lets herself relax.

Which proves to be a stupid move because a moment later the fucking fork _stabs into her foot_ what the _fuck_. She gives a pained grunt, and a second later Molly’s grabbed her ankle and _yanked_ , hard. One moment Beau’s standing, the next she can taste copper in her mouth and she’s on the floor and Molly is climbing over her with teeth bared in a snarl and _fuck shit fuck_ —

Yasha grabs him by the scruff of his neck and yanks, tossing him off with ease. Molly slams into the ground, and has to stagger to his feet again.

Beau glances around, sees Caleb scattering fine sand out off to the side and whispering some arcane words. Molly stumbles for a moment, shutting his eyes and making Beau think for a second that somehow, impossibly, Caleb’s spell _worked_ , but shakes his head and flips the fork in his hand, going for Yasha again.

Fjord’s Eldritch Blast slams into Molly’s chest, as does Nott’s crossbow bolt, and _the blood blooms bright onto the snow, red eyes blink once, twice, then the glaive slides out and no no no she’s too far away she has to catch him but he’s already collapsing and oh no oh gods no please no fuck you Molly you fucking bastard don’t you do this don’t you fucking do this_ —

—and she hears a familiar shout, out of place in the memory that’s flashed in front of her eyes. She blinks, shaking off the cold and the snow and the sight of Molly sliding to the ground, and Jester’s hand is outstretched towards Molly as she says something Beau doesn’t quite catch. Molly spins on his heel with a snarl, one of the red eye tattoos on his neck bursting, and Jester gasps as her eyes go black. Molly, however, suddenly freezes in place, every muscle locking up. He makes a horrible pained noise.

No, worse.

He sounds _confused_. His head moves jerkily around, as much as the spell allows, like he’s trying to figure out what the hell’s going on, why there’s a building crowd around them, why is everyone staring at him.

“Mollymauk?” says Caleb. “Can you hear us now? Jester, _bitte_ , drop the spell, I think he’s himself now—”

“Molly, you _fuck_ ,” snaps Beau, getting to her feet, “you stabbed me with a _fork_.”

“Give me a second,” says Jester, rubbing at her eyes. The darkness clears, the blue of her eyes finally showing through, and she blinks at them all. “Oh, it worked! Molly, are you _you_ again?”

“Molly,” says Fjord, and the falchion disappears from his hand, “Molly, can you hear us? You got any idea what just happened, ‘cause we kinda _don’t_.”

Nott winds her crossbow back, and says, shakily, “Molly, you okay?”

“Molly?” says Yasha, holding her hand out. She steps closer, like she’s trying to gentle a scared animal, and after a moment the spell seems to fade. Molly collapses like a puppet with its strings cut, a hand going to the crossbow bolt buried in his chest, and Beau moves fast. This time, she catches him before he hits the ground, steadies him as he blinks down at the crossbow bolt. It’s—It’s not _bad_ , Beau can see that now, it’s not so deep that it’ll kill him if it’s dug out, but now Molly’s staring down at it like he’s not quite seeing it.

“Show’s over, folks!” Fjord’s shouting at the crowd, as Beau checks Molly over, pressing her fingers to his pulse at his neck, letting out a relieved breath when she feels it steadily beating under her fingertips. “Go back to your drinks, there’s nothing to see here!”

Maybe he’s not seeing the crossbow bolt, the tavern, the people, confused and drifting away. Maybe he’s seeing something else, too: the snow, the blood, the glaive buried in his chest, twisting to kill.

“Hey,” Beau barks out to get his attention, “hey, Mollymauk Tealeaf, you obnoxious asshole, look at me, _look at me_. Don’t look at that. Look at me, come _on_.” She smacks his cheek, hard, and he blinks, turns to look at her with those solid red eyes of his. There’s confusion there, now, a bleary sort of half-awareness that usually belongs on the hungover and the half-awake. “Okay, good. You know who you are?”

Molly nods.

“Good,” says Beau, nodding towards Jester, who’s rolling up her sleeves and walking over, her hands shining with divine light. “You got any idea what just happened here? You just flipped your shit.”

Molly blinks at her, and she sees it then, the awful moment of realization when her words start to sink in. He breaks away from her then, unsteady on his feet, and yanks the crossbow bolt out himself, looking between all of them with horrified eyes. He looks like a wreck, bleeding sluggishly from his arm and from the place the crossbow bolt landed in his chest, and his hand slowly goes up to his mouth.

“Molly,” says Jester, kindly, “Molly, just hold still, okay, I’m going to heal you.”

Molly backs up a step. Then another. Then another. Before anyone can catch him, before even Beau can grab him by the sleeve, he’s turned on his heel and sprinted off, towards the stairs.

“Shit,” says Jester.

“Fuck,” says Nott.

“ _Shit,_ ” says Beau, rounding on everyone else. “What the fuck happened?!”

“I don’t know!” says Yasha. “I—One moment he was okay, the next he was trying to stab me, I don’t _know_ why—”

“ _Elster_ ,” says Caleb, suddenly, running a hand through his hair. Beau casts her memory back, and realizes: the damn _word_ , Molly had gone still and strange after Caleb had said that word. “ _Scheiße, ich war es_ , this is my fault, I set him off. I didn’t realize he would have—I should’ve _known_ this, _he_ planted failsafes in our heads, it stands to reason Mollymauk would have failsafes in his head too.”

“What’re you on about?” says Fjord. “What kind of failsafes are these?”

“The kind that would be set off if you said a specific word,” says Caleb, accent growing thicker as he fidgets. “The kind you could use to—set them back, if they were showing signs of rebelliousness.”

“Oh,” says Beau, the pieces of that puzzle clicking into place in her head. Of course there’d be such a measure in place, to bring rebellious people back into line, no matter how high the cost, morally speaking. These assholes are morally bankrupt already, what’s one more sin? Then the rest of the realization kicks in: “Oh, _fuck_.”

“ _Fuck,_ ” Caleb agrees.

\--

Molly doesn’t move for—a while, after the door slams, after he slumps down against it. The most he does move is to take his coat off, tug it up to cover him like a blanket.

It helps a little bit.

Not as much as he hoped it would, but a little is enough, right now. His thoughts are still racing, his heart is still hammering, and there’s still blood dripping down his arm, sluggishly seeping into his dress. Shit, the dress, he’s probably ruining it right now. Shit, there’s probably a crossbow bolt hole to patch up in the front now. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

Shit, _Yasha_. He’d tried to stab _Yasha_. Tried to kill Beau again, too, she’s going to be so annoyed with him, he’s certain. Oh, gods. Oh, gods. What had happened, what did he do, what is going on in his head, why can’t he trust his own fucking head anymore, what the _fuck_ —

Dress, dress, focus on the dress, do not panic over what you can’t control, Mollymauk. After all, he sure as fuck didn’t have any control just then. He’s not even sure anyone had any control, he knows Caleb would rather die before putting Nott in more trouble than she could theoretically withstand. It had just happened.

Gods, his dress is probably fucked. Great. He’ll have to stitch up the hole Nott’s crossbow bolt left in it, first of all. That’s annoying, he doesn’t think he has anything left. Maybe Jester might be willing to let him borrow some thread, and he knows he put the sewing needle away somewhere.

Oh, no.

Oh, fuck, _Jester_.

He fucking _blinded her_ , fuck, _fuck_.

Molly makes a small noise in the back of his throat, a high-pitched keening sound, and shuts his eyes. What the hell is he supposed to do now? He should leave, probably. Heading into the woods where no one will ever say something to him that could snap him back to that broken half-feral thing from just days ago sounds good, right now. He should go. He absolutely should leave because it would be safer for everyone if he did. And they wouldn’t even need to do so much work trying to unravel the thing left in his head, and Jester would be okay. Jester would be _okay_.

He should go. He should go.

He doesn’t. He tugs his coat closer around himself instead, because the terror is clawing at his throat and at his ribcage, and he can’t be alone. He can’t. Twice dead and seven months someone’s puppet and he’s _still_ scared to die, still terrified of being completely alone.

Someone knocks at the door, snapping him out of the downward spiral his thoughts are taking. He shakes his head, and considers finding some way to tell whoever’s at the door to go fuck themselves, he’s trying to pull himself together here, figure out some plan where everyone wins and no one gets hurt besides the people who deserve to get hurt.

Then there’s a thud, like the person’s rested against the door and slumped down. Yasha’s voice calls, “Molly? I know you’re there. Can you open the door?”

Well. Hell. He can’t tell Yasha to go fuck herself. He exhales, lets his head fall back against the wooden door with a soft _thunk_. The charms dangling from his horns tinkle softly, and his hand drops into his pocket, pulls out his cards. He shuffles, reshuffles, pulls a card.

The Raven Queen’s mask is the first thing he sees. The white horse she rides is the second. Of course he’d pull the damn Death card again. What is the Moonweaver trying to tell him? Is this even the Moonweaver talking to him, or something else?

“Molly? Will you let me in?”

Shuffle, reshuffle. He puts the deck back into his pocket, seriously considering just chucking the Death card out the window. But then he’d have an incomplete deck, and for a fortune teller that’d fuck up the readings like nothing else.

And anyway, Yasha’s just outside.

He sighs, then raps his knuckles against the wooden door, once, twice, three times. On the other side, he hears Yasha’s relieved sigh, and a sound like she’s moving to stand. He does too, after a moment, shrugging his coat back on and pulling the door open.

There’s Yasha, all right, and the faded scar where he’d tried to dig a fork into her neck. Jester’s been at her, it seems.

“Are you all right?” says Yasha.

Molly tries a smile, and a nod. Of course he’s all right. Of course he’s not panicking, of course he’s not having a breakdown because he’s just tried to kill someone he loves because of some fucking _word_ , of course he’s fine. He’s fine.

But Yasha has known him for maybe the longest time, out of this motley little group of shitheads, and she shakes her head and steps inside. “You don’t look all right,” she says, and sometimes Molly’s thankful that Yasha can see right through his bullshit, sometimes he’s not. He’s not sure which it is, this time. He rocks back and forth on his heels, his tail lashing anxiously about under his dress and his coat, aching dully with the half-remembered pain of Inflict Wounds. “You’re definitely not all right, if you’re telling me you are. While you’re bleeding.”

Can’t bullshit her. Shouldn’t have even tried. Molly slumps onto the bed, looking away from Yasha and her scar and down at his hands. What else has this body done without his permission, he wonders. If he casts his memory back, tries his hardest to remember despite how it scares him so much, what kind of horrible things will he remember? Worse, what kind of horrible things are just—not there in his head, but have made their mark on him anyway? He shivers, and pulls his coat tighter around himself.

Yasha stands in front of him. “Mollymauk?” she says, so soft and gentle and light. It’s funny, he’s seen her in the throes of her fury, carving up wolves and ogres and giants like she’s just carving up butter, howling as skeletal wings shoot from her back, but—he feels safe, when she says his name. A little bit safer than before, anyway.

She kneels down in front of him, takes his hand, presses his fingers to the faded scar. Her pulse beats steadily under his fingertips. He could press in and rip, he thinks, suddenly, and recoils from the thought. “I’m okay,” she says.

He shakes his head, suddenly, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. This isn’t okay. This is so far from okay that they’re in a completely different country on a completely different continent. He could’ve killed Yasha or Beau, he almost _did_ , there is nothing about this that could possibly be okay, and a hysterical laugh bubbles in his throat, his hand coming up to pull at his hair—

Yasha’s fingers lock around his wrist, catching him before he falls further into a downward spiral of panic, snapping him back to reality. “ _I’m okay,_ ” she stresses, moving his hand to just over her heart. It beats steadily under his palm, _thud thud thud_. “You couldn’t kill me if you tried. And you did try.”

That—makes him feel better, strangely. He looks up at last to see her mismatched gaze, and opens his mouth. Shuts it. Shuts his eyes again, takes a breath, then another, because his hands are shaking in hers and he’s so _tired_ , so, so tired, his dress is ruined and his head’s a fucked up mess and he died he died _he died_ —

Yasha’s holding him, he realizes, suddenly. Yasha’s got her arms around him, and she’s holding him close enough that he can feel her heartbeat, feel her breath tickling the back of his neck. He chokes back his words, the geas shutting them off before he can say _I died oh gods I died and I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay again because how the fuck do you recover from just that_ , and brings his arms up to cling to her instead, shaking apart in her embrace.

His fingers dig into her shawl, his chest wracked with heaving sobs, and she holds him. She _holds_ him like he’s a person, a very fucked-up person who’s been through some shit but a person nonetheless who needs care, holds him so gently and firmly that some little part of him, trapped in a small stone cell, is half-convinced there’s a catch. The rest of him knows: it’s Yasha. He’s safe with her. Her hands grow warm on his back, for a second, the same warmth he feels when Jester heals him, then cool back down.

Eventually the shaking slows. Eventually the sobbing fades into hiccups. Eventually the storm passes, and Molly’s breathing slows back down. Yasha holds him through all of it, a steady rock for him to cling on to, and he’s so fucking grateful for that tiny little thing he’d probably fall apart again if he thought too hard about it. He should stop thinking too hard about things, honestly, he only has a breakdown.

She pats his back, a little awkwardly. “Are you okay now?” she asks.

He laughs a little, and if there’s a hysterical edge to it, no one else needs to know. She breaks away from him and smooths his hair back.

“It’s not your fault,” she says. “I don’t blame you. Not really. And—anyway, you weren’t very good at trying.”

He wipes at his tears, and nods. He knows it’s not his fault. He might be fucked up as hell at the moment, and there might be a half-feral killer lurking in his head ready to lash out at any moment, but Molly’s not the one at fault here. For a lot of things. For whatever his body got up to while he wasn’t in charge, and that’s the part that digs little pinprick claws of fear into his heart.

He’s not always the one calling the shots in his own body. He can’t even trust his own memory. No way to live, that. He wonders how anyone could manage to live like that.

Yasha’s brushing her thumb across his cheekbone, wiping away tears. “It’s not your fault,” she says.

He nods, again, and she gets to her feet.

But she doesn’t go just yet. She keeps a hand on his shoulder, and draws him in close so his forehead touches the top of her stomach. Then she bends down, says, “You told me you used to get this a lot, when you were new,” and gently presses a kiss to his hairline. Like forgiveness. Like a benediction. Like a reassurance that she’ll stick around, that she’ll come back, as long as he’ll have her.

He breathes out, and the terror and panic die down at last. He thinks maybe he can breathe again.

Yasha, finally, steps back. “I’ll be downstairs,” she says. “If you need me. Everyone else is too, they’re talking about stuff.”

Stuff, Molly’s sure, that has to do with him. Some part of him thinks, _this is it, this is when they know this is too much, this is when they’ll throw you out and you’ll be alone and they’re better off, aren’t they,_ but Molly’s practiced at ignoring that part of him. Or he had been until—until he went Away and came back, is how he’ll think of it. Easier to think of it that way than to call it what it really is: seven months of torture and brainwashing and breaking.

But he knows the Mighty Nein. He knows _Yasha_. She’d stick up for him. Hell, they all would. It’s touching, to know that.

Yasha smiles at him, a small, genuine, honest smile, as she opens the door. To his, and evidently Yasha’s, surprise, Jester walks through with a plate of roast chicken and a mug of ale. Her hands aren’t glowing anymore, which Molly supposes means she’s about done healing everyone up.

“Hi, Molly! Hi, Yasha!” Jester chirps, deftly dancing around Yasha. It’s impressive, she manages not to spill a drop of ale as she moves. “You didn’t eat downstairs so I figured I’d come up here with your food after I finished healing up Beau. Everybody’s okay, by the way, we were talking about the words in your head and how to take them out.”

Something in Molly’s heart eases just enough to be noticeable. Funny, he hadn’t realized it needed to be eased at all.

“I’ve still got some healing left,” Jester starts.

Molly shakes his head, and waves a hand over at Yasha.

“I already healed her,” Jester says. “Plus you didn’t hurt her that bad.” She sets the plate and ale aside on the drawer, within reach of Molly’s arms with just a little scooting closer. “You’re hurt way worse, actually.”

Yasha shakes her head, and says, “No, he means I already healed him.”

“But he still looks bad!” says Jester, waving her hand.

Molly shrugs, and waves a hand over the half-healed scars that haven’t completely closed over even with Jester’s aid. He’s gotten a pretty good look at himself already, and he already did look pretty fucked up even before the fight happened. He imagines he looks worse now, although the bleeding’s stopped. Small miracle, that.

“I didn’t mean those,” says Jester. “I meant what you got in the fight today. Yasha’s not as good as healing as me.” She glances back to Yasha, who’s already stepping out. “No offense,” she says.

“None taken,” says Yasha. “I’m going down. Do either of you want anything?”

“Bagels,” says Jester, after a moment.

Yasha nods, then shuts the door. Molly uncurls, lets his legs dangle off the side of the bed, and scoots closer to the plate. He is feeling somewhat peckish right now, although the meat pie hadn’t been that long ago.

Jester sits down next to him and places a gentle hand on his shoulder. As he’s munching on the chicken and trying not to scratch too hard at the now-healing cuts and scrapes and bruises and _crossbow bolt hole_ in his body, she says, “You missed out on a lot of things, you know.”

Molly nods. He’s well aware. There’s another presence now that the group is missing, it’s somewhat obvious from where he’s standing: this Clay guy, the one Jester sometimes talks about, the firbolg who’s been accompanying them for a while. He wishes he’d met the guy, he seems like fun.

He wishes a lot of things, like the last seven months back, like his old certainty in his mind being his own back. But he’ll settle for this, for stories from Jester and everyone else about the people they’ve met, the places they’ve seen, the things they’ve done. They’re fantastic stories, anyway, the kind he wouldn’t have believed from anyone else.

“We’ll tell you all about them,” Jester says. “Everything we can remember. And we have Caleb, so if we pool all the details we have together we could come up with a really good picture of what we were up to while you were—”

She stops.

Then she huffs out a breath and scoots closer, twirling a lock of his hair around her fingers. Molly lets her make an attempt at braiding his hair again, this time in silence, while he does his best to somehow stay completely still and eat a really good chicken at the same time. His success is variable, judging from her occasional indignant huffs, but at least the chicken’s good.

He’s licking the grease off his fingers when Jester scoots closer and says, quiet, “I’m sorry.”

He blinks. This calls for the notebook. He wipes the rest of the grease off on the bed and pulls his notebook and pencil—oh, no, he’d left them both downstairs, hadn’t he. He turns to Jester and shakes his head, and takes her hands in his.

“We didn’t save you,” she explains, matter-of-fact. “We tried, but we couldn’t. And you tried to save _us_. You tried to save _me_ , and I didn’t heal you when you needed it. When it’s my _job_.”

Oh.

Oh, no, how long has she been carrying this around? How long has she and everyone else been carrying this guilt around, this misplaced burden? The answer flashes across his memory: _seven months since you died, Tealeaf, you dumbass_.

Oh, no.

He scoots closer to her, bumps his horn against hers, careful not to get it caught in her jewelry. Some things the Empire’s finest warmages couldn’t completely wipe away from him. Some things are just carved into his bones, into his heart, permanent and true the way almost nothing else about Molly is.

This is one of them: the unspoken private gestures between tieflings, the importance of their horns in those gestures. And horns are important, to most tieflings—Molly knows there’s a few who’ve cut theirs off out of sheer self-hatred, filed them down into nubs like Fjord files down his tusks (filed, maybe, how long has it been since the last time Molly saw him picking at them). But for the most part they have horns, and sometimes the gestures common to every race just aren’t strong enough to convey just how emotional one feels about something. Which is where tiefling horns come in.

Molly only half-remembers the gestures and the signs, but he knows this: if you bump horns against someone else’s set, especially another tiefling’s, you’re calling them _family_. Depending on the situation, you’re absolving them of the mistakes they’ve made, proclaiming you’ll keep them safe and guard them with your life, assuring them you’re here, you’re here, you’re _here_ , and other fun interpretations.

He hopes she gets what he means: he doesn’t blame her. He never could. She’s the best of them, the heart of the Nein, and he knows down in his core that she’s not the one at fault here. She’s family.

Jester goes still, more out of shock than anything else. After a moment, she bumps back. She gets it. He relaxes.

“I missed you,” she says, lowly. “I really did.”

He strokes a thumb along her knuckles. She seems to relax, the tension going out of her shoulders, but when she looks up at him her eyes are shining with tears. Oh, hell, he made her cry.

There’s really only one way he can respond to that. He tugs her in closer, mindful of her horn jewelry and his own horns, and wraps his arms around her. She doesn’t quite break the same way he did just less than ten minutes ago, by his count, but she does shake a little, and he feels her burying her face in his dress and hiccuping softly.

There’s so much he wants to tell her. _Please don’t blame yourself, I know you did everything you could. I made my choice and I don’t regret it, no matter what it led to for me, I only regret not coming back to you sooner. I’m happy you’re all safe and alive, and I’d pay the same price again if it meant keeping you all that way. I’m here, I’m alive, I’m sorry too, Jester. I’m so sorry._

The geas strangles his voice before he can tell her, though, the words dying in his throat. So instead of telling her, he just holds her tight, rubbing circles into her back while she cries into his dress. He definitely is going to have to fix it up, at this point, but right now he can’t quite bring himself to care. Jester needs someone to cry on, and Molly’s willing to make a small sacrifice.

After a while, Jester’s crying slows to a stop, and she breaks away, wiping at her tears and smiling again. It’s less brittle now, more real, even with the tear tracks down her face. “I’m really glad you’re alive, Molly,” she says.

He smiles and nods, then points at himself, at his heart pumping blood through his veins, stubborn and sure. He’s glad to be alive too, despite everything that’s happened to him. Death had sucked. He’d been cold and alone and scared, is all that he remembers of it, and he’s not exactly raring to go back to that.

“I bet you’d be happier without the thing in your head, though,” she says, and he can’t argue that. He nods again. “Okay, hold still. I’m gonna do Remove Curse again—maybe I’ll get one of the words in your head, this time.”

He’s not sure that’s how they work, really, but it’s worth a try. Jester’s hands glow with divine light, and she presses her fingers to his cheek.


	16. just put those colors on

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from Ke$ha’s “Rainbow”. some beta-reading done for this chapter and the next one by Wanderingchronicle! thanks brah.

“So, let me get this straight,” says Fjord. “You, and by extension Molly, have a list of words that could snap you back to this—half-feral killer version of you? Like,” and he snaps his fingers, “just like that? It wasn’t removed by Greater Restoration? And neither of you know any of those words?”

“Mollymauk wouldn’t,” says Caleb. They’re still crowded around the table, but it’s just the four of them now with Yasha, Jester and Molly upstairs. Nott’s nervously chugging the ale, and Caleb figures that means in just a couple of minutes, she’ll be incredibly drunk. “I didn’t when I wasn’t—broken. The words wouldn’t work if we knew they were coming.” He huffs out a breath, and looks down into his ale. “I know some of them now, but not every one of them. And Greater Restoration didn’t take _all_ of them, just—some.”

“So you could pull a Molly and flip your shit too,” says Fjord.

“Hah, no,” says Caleb. “I know all of those words, they stopped working after the clouds were taken away. The words I _don’t_ know are the ones that just—turn me into a blank slate, to be written on.” He takes a sip of his ale, still not looking up to meet anyone’s gazes. “And before you ask, no, I wouldn’t know which words work on Mollymauk, they’re not the same words that used to work on me. They’re different from person to person. Less of a risk that way.”

“A risk that what just happened might happen again?” says Beau.

“Something like that,” says Caleb. “I— _Es tut mir Leid_ , I should have been more careful. This was on me.”

“No, it’s not,” says Nott. “You didn’t _know_ , you just said it yourself.”

“But yeah, we definitely gotta be more careful about this,” says Beau, and Caleb looks up, half-expecting to see disgust on her face. Instead there’s only pragmatic concern, and she drums her fingers on the table even as Nott bristles. “I’m not just talking about the words here, the ones that’ll set Molly off. Both times he flipped, it was in public: we jumped out of a window, and now we had to knock him out in a tavern. With _people_ around. We’ve gotta keep a low profile.”

“Have to agree with Beau here,” says Fjord, nodding towards Beau, who takes a sip of her ale. “We’re already gonna pull a heist in a few days, and I dunno if that Greater Restoration’s not gonna draw some attention our way that we don’t want.”

“It likely won’t,” says Caleb.

“Your healer is stuck in an asylum, if she got any attention, it’s off of her now,” says Beau. “We’re not sticking Jester in an asylum, we’re gonna fix her if this goes wrong.”

If this goes wrong, Caleb knows it will break Molly’s heart. Fjord’s, too, he sees the way Fjord flinches at the words coming out of Beau’s mouth, the way he looks down and shivers as though a cold chill has just run over his spine. But Molly? If Jester were to get hurt healing Molly, the same way the healer got hurt healing Caleb, it would shatter him.

Caleb shivers, remembering how Molly had fallen apart in his arms. He’s broken enough now, Caleb doesn’t want to see him shatter. And he doesn’t want Jester to get hurt, either. She is the best of them, and she has been through enough, with the Shepherds and with everything else that’s happened lately. And she’s their only cleric again, that’s enough stress already without adding in this mess they’ve now gotten themselves into.

And—she’s his friend. She can be a bit much, sometimes, but she’s his friend, she pulled him into a bakery and she bought him books and she has been so good to him even now, now that she knows he doesn’t deserve kindness or goodness or anything. Caleb doesn’t want to see her hurt, the same way as the healer who took away the clouds that first time was. She’s deep enough in this mess as it is.

He draws his coat closer around himself.

“So should we transfer inns?” he says. “There are not many inns willing to accept any more people now that the festival has already begun. We got lucky enough even finding this one.”

“Transferring inns this late in the game’s not advisable, no,” says Fjord. “We already paid up for the full festival.”

“We’re staying that long?” says Nott.

“Yeah, Jester and Molly seemed to like the idea,” says Beau. “Hell, Molly went dancing.”

“With Caleb,” Nott says, “so I guess I could see your point, sort of.”

Caleb looks back down at his ale again, and hopes that the dirt and grime and stubble on his cheeks is thick enough to keep the blush from being noticed. “As far as we know, what sets him off are words in Zemnian,” he offers instead. “And I am the only one in this group here who knows any Zemnian. I can be more careful with what I say.”

“Yeah,” says Fjord, “you’re—pretty much the only person he’ll respond to, actually.”

“We are working on that,” says Caleb. “But I will need to head to the other library in this town, the one that’s Academy-associated, so—Beauregard, Fjord, Nott, will you come with me? We will have to ask someone with some authority to provide us with signed papers so we can come inside, and I would— _really_ love to get inside that library.”

“Sure, I’ll babysit you for the rest of the afternoon,” says Beau, with some evident reluctance. “At least you’re not gonna try to stab me with a sewing needle or a fork.”

“Uh, yeah, I’ll come with,” says Fjord. “But I was actually planning on checking out the Shield’s Grace inn—we got a lead from the Soltryce Academy, might be we could put together what she says to what you’re telling us.”

“I, ah, have a lead from the Soltryce Academy too,” says Caleb, sitting up. “Jester already told me and Nott about Janille, I may as well tell you both about Verrin, she told me she used to be one of Astrid’s pupils—”

“Verrin’s what,” says Beau, floored.

“She’s _what_ ,” says Fjord, straightening up in his seat.

Nott doesn’t say anything, but she tips her head back and pours alcohol down her throat. Which is strange, she’d been there for when Jester had told them, but Caleb’s not going to judge her for choosing when to drink. It’s been a very tiring morning. Some part of Caleb is very tempted to just chug from Nott’s flask, too, and get even more drunk than she usually does.

He takes a sip of his ale instead and tells them what he told Jester. He’s been with these people for long enough that he knows what horror and rage look on their faces, what realization looks like as well, and he can see the last one sinking in when he tells them of Verrin’s own strange abilities, similar enough to Molly’s that Caleb can see why Astrid took an interest in the both of them, beyond satisfying her grudge towards the person who used to inhabit Molly’s body.

He doesn’t tell them what Jester told them, of Lucien’s determination on finding some book, to the point of sacrificing the people around him. Nothing like Molly, who’d put himself on the line for someone else, who’d died to keep Beauregard safe.

He shivers at the memory, and Nott bumps an elbow against his side. Her drink sloshes somewhat as she does so, but Caleb gratefully leans a little against her anyway. He doesn’t deserve a friend like Nott, but somehow he’s gotten her anyway. Somehow they’ve managed to find the Mighty Nein.

But if it hadn’t been for Molly they might well have never stayed together, the five of them. He remembers Trostenwald, the tension and distrust in the air between the two tables, and remembers the bright grin, the colors, the way Molly seemed to slide into a chair and chat with Jester like they were old friends, even if he’d been selling something. The memory tastes bittersweet now on his tongue, the edges of it beginning to wear away and grow yellow, like the pages of a book that have been turned too many times. But it won’t fade, though, not ever. Not for Caleb.

He’s not sure anymore if that’s a blessing or a curse. It had been a gift, when he was younger, a curse seven months ago, and now—

“Well, shit,” Fjord says, breaking the silence that’s fallen over them after Caleb’s finished his explanation.

 

“Okay, we need to keep Yasha and Molly away from that inn,” says Beau, taking a sip of her own ale. “And you too, I guess.”

“No, I never knew this Janie woman, she will not know me,” says Caleb. “And it has been _years_ since the last time Astrid, Eodwulf and I were together. Neither of them would know who I am from a cursory glance, I look like a dirty hobo that slept in shit and smell worse than a sewer in Zadash.” A beggar, in short, the sort of person the boy he used to be would never have even looked at twice. He hopes that still holds true, for Astrid.

“You don’t look that bad,” someone says, and the four of them turn to see Yasha coming down the stairs, cocking her head to the side as she looks Caleb up and down. “Just—a little bit dirty, that’s all.”

“And unshaven, and wearing ragged clothes, and with much longer hair than before,” Caleb points out.

Yasha frowns, and says, “I could shave you. If that’s what you’re worried about. I’ve got the sword, I’m getting better at it.” She waves a hand to the giant sword strapped to her back, easily taller than Beau. “I’m not going to nick you again like last time.”

“Better not,” Nott mutters, “there was _way_ too much blood last time.”

Oh, gods, he really does miss shaving. “Not right now,” he says, reluctantly, “we are trying to keep a low profile, _ja_? So it’s better to keep the beard for now. There’s less of a chance someone I knew will know who I am, if we happen to run into them.” And considering just how many strings of this web keep leading back to Caleb’s past, it’s only a matter of time until someone from his past does show up in person. Hopefully later, rather than sooner, when they’ve put Molly back together, when they’re all more prepared for someone that powerful.

“You think we will?” says Fjord, quiet. “Do they still know those words you were talking about, earlier?”

Caleb lets out a breath, and grips his mug tightly, looking down now. “Not Astrid or Eodwulf, I should think,” he says. “I don’t know their words either, before you ask. I’m not certain if it would even work on them anymore, anyway.”

“Would they still work on you?” Fjord asks. “You talk like you think they will.”

“Thought Greater Restoration could fix that,” Beau points out. “You mentioned they worked on some words, the ones where you’d snap like Molly does.”

“I’m not certain, but—like I said,” says Caleb, now looking up to meet Beau’s blue eyes, “not everything used on us was magical in nature.” He sighs. “Magic was sometimes used to reinforce the conditioning, but the groundwork was just—psychological in nature. But that was Ikithon, I do not know if Astrid felt the same need to go to such lengths.” Although she’d gotten help from Ikithon, so maybe—

Caleb’s fingers tighten around his mug. He tastes ashes in the back of his throat, and he takes a sip of ale to wash them down.

Fjord lets out a slow breath. “Well, that’s just fuckin’ fantastic,” he mutters, rubbing at his temples. “You know about Janille, Jester’s told you about her already, so—what’s your expert opinion?”

“Has she graduated yet?” Caleb asks.

“No,” says Yasha.

“Then she isn’t past the point of no return just yet,” says Caleb, “but if you try to convince her that she’s been fed lies, you’ll meet a lot of resistance. We were _never_ to doubt the Empire, and those who were a part of it too.” The safety and security of the Empire should stand above all, even family. That’s something Caleb has been taught, over and over, although he doesn’t believe it now, hasn’t in years. The thought still springs to his mind, even now. “She will not be as easy to convince as Mollymauk, if you plan to speak to her, get her on our side. Remember, she is an _apprentice_ , Astrid will have been more careful on her than she was on Mollymauk.”

“She seemed pretty convinced of the Academy, you’re gonna be fighting an uphill battle already just getting information out of her,” says Beau. “Wish I could help.”

“We have nine days, we could save meeting up with her for another day,” says Nott. “It’ll be a power play! We can let her _stew_.”

“We ran into her in a bakery, it ain’t much of a power play,” says Fjord. “So—we’ll meet up with her tomorrow, then? Still gotta do recon on Lestra’s warehouse, figure out how _that’s_ going down. And there’s that Rattlesnake to worry about, we’ve got to start looking into him. _And_ , of course, Caleb’s research, which needs papers from a real bigwig in this town.”

They’ll work on that last part. Caleb’s already running through a list of government officials in his head: perhaps they can speak to the Lawmaster, or barring that, the Captain of the Guard. They just need to come up with a good tale about why, exactly, they need to get into the library, and why they need the papers.

“She doesn’t know there’s more than just me, Jester, Fjord and Beau, anyway,” says Yasha. “And I have a cover story. It’s not a bad one.”

“Let’s hear it,” says Caleb.

Beau starts to snicker, and Fjord covers his mouth and coughs. Caleb decides not to point out that his coughing sounds suspiciously like a laugh.

“I woke up two years ago in the woods with no memory of where I came from,” says Yasha, and Caleb can’t help the snicker that bursts out past his lips without his permission. He looks at Yasha, a little afraid he’s drawn her ire, but he sees the smile touching her lips before she ducks her head. “I’m planning to tell Molly about it. I think he might like it.”

“He’d love it,” says Beau. “Is he okay, upstairs?”

“He’s okay,” Yasha assures them, and Caleb breathes out, relieved. “Jester’s with him right now, they were talking when I left.” She looks around the tavern, and says, “Uh, are there any bagels nearby?”

“I know where you can find bagels,” says Nott, standing up and clambering down off her chair. She grabs Yasha’s hand. “We’ll be back in a bit!” she calls to the rest of them. “Don’t get murdered!”

It probably says something about their current situation that no one comments on how seemingly out-of-place those parting words are. It’s not _likely_ Molly will flip his shit on them again today, certainly, as long as Caleb’s careful with what he says and they don’t run into someone who knows which words to use to snap Molly back into that snarling tiefling from days ago. The problem is that Caleb has been a part of this group of assholes for long enough to know that _unlikely_ and _impossible_ are not in any way synonymous.

Hell, he’s fairly certain someday they’ll all start treating the word _impossible_ as a challenge. If they haven’t already started doing so.

“We’ll strategize later, when everyone’s here,” says Fjord. “Seems kinda unfair otherwise, ‘specially since _some_ of them are under discussion here.”

“All right,” says Caleb. “I need to go check on Mollymauk, see if he’s all right.”

Fjord’s fingers catch on Caleb’s sleeve when he stands, and he tugs Caleb out of his chair and into an alcove, a little further away from Beau. Caleb braces himself for—for something. For Fjord kicking him out of the Mighty Nein, perhaps. His heart climbs into his throat, because he loves this group of shitheads, he really does, but he’s a liability now. He looks down at his hands. Nott will be okay. Nott cares about this group, she will be happy here. Molly will be, as well. Neither of them need Caleb, not Nott, not Molly.

“Listen, Caleb—thanks,” Fjord says, which is exactly the opposite of what Caleb was expecting to hear, and his gaze snaps up from his hands. “For telling us all this shit. I know it’s not the easiest thing to do, talkin’ about your past to us, fucked up as it is. And—I guess I get why you didn’t say anything about it, not until it crashed down on us.” He sighs. “Would’ve liked some warning ‘fore it did, I’m not gonna lie about that. But you’ve been telling us everything you know about this mess since then, and it’s been incredibly useful.”

“That’s—all I need,” says Caleb.

“No, it’s not,” says Fjord. “This shit from your past isn’t done with us yet. It’s barely even started. We got Molly back, that’s good, and we got leads besides you, but I got a feeling we’re gonna get ourselves in a whole lot of trouble with people _you_ knew, so I just—I need you to know, Caleb, that when it comes to that, the Mighty Nein’ll have your back. Come hell or high water.” He claps Caleb’s shoulder, and says, “We’re making it work, right now, despite everything that’s happened.”

Caleb stares at him, trying to search Fjord’s face for any hint that he might be lying, any sign that he’s being less than truthful. Nothing. Fjord isn’t lying to him, not in this.

Well. He’s. He’s really not sure how he got here, and he still doesn’t think he deserves this, but he swallows the doubt, the self-loathing, and says, “We’re making it work.” If he says it enough times, he might even start to believe it. “And we’ll keep making it work.”

“That’s the spirit,” says Fjord, warmly.

“You don’t come back here in five minutes, I’ll drink all your ale!” Beau calls out to them, and Fjord huffs out a laugh. “I’m serious! I’m out of ale here!”

“I’m coming!” Fjord calls back.

“Tell Beau she can have my ale,” says Caleb. “I’m going upstairs.”

\--

Two red threads fade away, this time. Jester plants her lollipop solidly into the snow-covered ground, panting hard. She hadn’t seen a memory this time when she’d yanked on one of the threads, but she’d heard a bird calling somewhere, and Molly had flinched at the sound like it was causing him real, physical pain.

_Elster_ , Caleb had said. Magpie, Jester’s figured out. It’s a bit ill-fitting, Molly’s more of a peacock like he’d said, but magpies do like to collect shiny things. Molly’s kind of a little bit like a magpie. Or he had been.

There’s the sound of a magpie’s song off in the distance, a shrill trill punctuated with a short _eep_. Jester winces at the sound, but she keeps an eye on Molly and sees the way he blinks in the bird call’s direction. He breathes out, slowly, and looks up at Jester.

“Think it worked,” he says.

Jester kneels down next to him, gently bumps his side, and says, “Do you know all the words in your head? Do you know what all these strings are?”

“No,” says Molly, and he shifts around as much as the strings will allow him to, hissing quietly when one pulls too tightly. He’s still curled up, and some part of Jester thinks he can’t actually stand, the strings have wrapped around him in such a way that he’s bound like this. Trapped in his own head. “Believe me, if I knew, I would tell you. Or write you. But mostly what I know here is the same as what I know consciously, except for what you’re up to.”

“That sucks,” Jester says, with a huff, and Molly chuckles quietly next to her. Their breaths come out in puffs of white, against the cold, bleak, snowy landscape.

“Yeah, it really does,” he says. Then he pauses, and says, quietly, “I don’t blame you. I can’t say that out loud, but I can say it here.”

“I know you don’t,” says Jester, curling up now too, mirroring Molly. “You bumped my horns.”

“It bears repeating,” says Molly. “I died, and it sucked, and I don’t want to go back to that ever again. That being said, it was my choice, and I don’t blame you. Any of you. Never could.” He huffs out a mirthless laugh, and stares off into the distance. Jester looks, and doesn’t see anything, but from the haunted look on Molly’s face, she wonders if that holds true for him. This road holds a lot of bad memories.

This is Molly’s head, isn’t it?

“I’m gonna try something,” she says.

Molly nods, and says, “Sure.”

She cups her hands in front of her, shuts her eyes and imagines a flower, like the ones inked on Molly’s skin. She only vaguely remembers them, the way they looked when he sank into the bath with the rest of them, but she thinks—there were forget-me-nots in there, right? She imagines a small bouquet, bright blue in her hands, and opens up her eyes.

There are forget-me-nots in her hands.

“It worked!” she exclaims, and Molly startles a little. He hisses in pain, but he uncurls just enough within his bonds to look up at her. “I’m sorry—look, I made you flowers! ‘Cause this place isn’t real, so I figured I’d give you something a little bit nice for next time I come here and crush the shit out of these strings.”

“Those are some very ironic flowers,” says Molly, dryly.

“They are super ironic,” Jester agrees, but she gently lays them into his hands. He smiles down at them, and she presses a kiss to the top of his head. “Don’t die again, okay?”

“I’ll try my hardest not to,” Molly promises. “But—listen, Jester, it was my choice. I knew what I was doing, what I was risking. And I don’t regret how I went out, I don’t even regret that it ended up with me trapped here, I’m just sorry I wasn’t able to get you all out.” He lets out a breath, and holds the flowers close to his chest. “I’m so sorry. For that and what happened earlier. If there’s one thing I do regret, it’s not getting back to you sooner. You’re _family_.”

“Don’t be sorry, silly,” Jester scolds him, and slides her fingers into his hair so she can bump her horns against his again. She tries a smile, but her eyes are stinging even here, in this not-real world, with just the two of them. “Don’t be. If I’m not supposed to feel sorry for what happened, you’re not supposed to either.”

Molly huffs out a laugh, and rests his horns against hers. “Why must you make a valid point,” he says, and it doesn’t sound like a question, just a fond observation. “Stay safe, Jester. Please.”

“I will,” she promises, and shuts her eyes, presses her hand against his cheek. She breathes in, breathes out—

—and she’s back in the room, back in Lynbroke, and she takes her hand away from Molly’s cheek. “How do you feel?” she asks, expecting an answer before she remembers: she’s not going to get any. Not right now.

Molly just shrugs, and opens his mouth. He shuts it again with a resigned sigh, puts the plate aside, and leans against her side. His tail isn’t flicking agitatedly around or bumping into hers, which is good, but he still can’t talk, which is less good. She isn’t sure what she did, honestly.

“If I say some random Zemnian stuff, will you flip out on me?” she asks.

Molly shrugs. Okay, he has no idea either. Then he pauses, and worriedly chews on his bottom lip, like he’s mulling something over. He holds up one finger, taps his lips, mimes holding up and ducking behind a shield, and looks at her expectantly from behind his imaginary shield, like he’s waiting on her to say something.

It takes Jester a moment, but she figures it out: “You want me to say it?”

He nods, holds up one finger again.

“There’s gotta be other ways to find out, there can’t be just one,” she mutters, but she takes her shield from off her back. She still has some spells left over, if Molly flips out, and Sacred Flame’s a cantrip. “Okay, um. What did Caleb say, again? _Elster._ ” That came out wrong. She sucks in a breath, then tries again, in an accent cleaving much closer to Caleb’s: “ _Elster._ ”

Molly goes still for a moment, and Jester tenses, raising her shield. Everyone’s downstairs, they’ll come up if she calls for help. Then he relaxes, stretches out on the bed like a cat, and gives her a grin and a thumbs-up.

Jester lets her shield drop, and says, “It worked! That’s one down and—a lot more to go.” There were a lot of strings, after all, glowing a sickly red. “Scoot over, I’m gonna braid your hair again.”

Molly scoots, and even turns over so Jester can have better access to his hair. It’s a pretty fucked-up mess, ragged and uneven, like someone took a knife and hacked off bits here and there. She settles next to him, tuts loudly, because really, this is just making her job harder, and gets to work.

She’s halfway through when someone knocks on the door. “I’m naked!” she shouts. “Give me like five minutes!”

Molly’s shoulders shake with muffled laughter.

“Jester, it’s just me,” Caleb calls from the other side. Then he pauses and adds, “Mollymauk, are you both decent in there?”

“I’ve been thoroughly and sadly decent for months, but Jester’s pulling her pants on,” Molly calls back, as Jester ties off the half-finished braid with a grumble. She pats the back of his shoulder and he cranes his neck to grin up at her. “Don’t come in just yet!”

“I’ll—take your word for it,” says Caleb, as Jester hops off the bed. She looks back, and Molly’s turning over onto his back, with a blissful look on his face as he shuts his eyes. How long has it been since any of them slept on a proper bed? They’re always on the road, after all. Then she wonders if it’s the same number for Molly, or if it’s been longer than that. He looks so happy just having a bed.

She turns back to the door and turns the knob, letting it swing wide open. “ _Hiiii_ , Caleb,” she says, singsong.

“I was just going to talk to Mollymauk,” says Caleb, somewhat uncertain. “I’m—glad you enjoyed yourself?”

“It wasn’t really _fun_ , fun,” she says, letting Caleb inside. Molly cracks an eye open, and Jester can see that little flirty smirk on his face when he waves. “But good news, we took out one word! The one you said.”

“That’s good,” says Caleb, fidgeting. “Jester, can Mollymauk and I speak in private? I want to try something with him, but I’m not certain if it will work with someone else around.”

“Oh, sure,” says Jester. “I’ll be just outside.” She looks between the two of them, and sees Molly’s flirty smirk softening into a more genuine smile when Caleb looks away. Wow. Molly is so gone on him, it’s pretty funny. And sad, and a little bit fucked up now since Caleb is technically his handler, technically, when she thinks about it, but also really sweet. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

“You’d do anything,” says Caleb.

“True,” says Jester, turning on her heel and walking out the door. “Later!”


	17. not your fault but mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> title is from Mumford and Sons' "Little Lion Man". the first part of this chapter was beta'd by Wanderingchronicle. thanks, brah.

Caleb sits on the edge of the bed and says, all in a rush, “So I may have lied to get her out of the room, but it is for a good cause—I want to surprise her. What do you think, Mollymauk?”

Molly pushes himself up to a more vertical position, somewhat reluctantly because it’s the comfiest bed he’s laid himself down on in about seven months, give or take, and scoots over until he’s next to Caleb. “I’m guessing this is the kind of surprise that involves me,” he says, leaning against Caleb’s side. Caleb doesn’t go completely still, so Molly’s going to count that as a win. “What exactly are you planning?”

“Something I really should have done sooner,” says Caleb. “I am going to order you to answer Jester’s questions, besides mine. Is that all right with you?”

Of course it’s all right with him. Molly likes (...is in love with) Caleb just fine ( _a lot_ ), but he misses talking to other people without having Caleb there to serve as a prompter. “Of course,” he says, a little bit touched anyway that Caleb asked. _Asked_. Seven months ago it wouldn’t have registered in Molly’s head, but seven months ago Molly’s head and thoughts and body were his own, untampered with, untouched by grudge-holding wizards with agendas, utterly under his control and no one else’s. “I’ve missed talking with Jester, she’s always got something interesting to say, and you know me—I _like_ interesting things.”

The geas closes in then, so instead of continuing on like he wants to, he just turns his head to better look at Caleb. For a moment he thinks he catches— _something_ in Caleb’s eyes. A spark, he thinks. What type of spark, Molly’s not sure, because Caleb looks away the moment his eyes meet Molly’s, and starts fiddling with the bandages around his hands, scooting slightly away. Curious.

“Do you,” Caleb starts, then stops, like he’s trying to pick the best thought, the best way to phrase it into a question. “Have you missed anything else? I cannot promise I can do anything, but I can—I can try.”

“Oh, plenty,” says Molly. “My sword, for example, the one Fjord swallowed, I miss that. I haven’t been to a bathhouse in a while, I miss those. My tapestry, I had plans for that.” He—can’t remember where that’s gone. Jester mentioned they still had it in the cart, and that, oh, yeah, he’d been buried in it. Ah, hell. That had been _expensive_ , too expensive to use as a burial shroud. “Those beds at the Pillow Trove, those were fantastic, I miss those. Uninterrupted sleep, I don’t—last night was the first time in a very, very long time I got any.” He stops in his tracks, because oh, no, getting too real. It’s the ale, it must be.

Caleb makes a terrible, heartbroken noise.

Ah, fuck.

Molly bumps his shoulder. Doesn’t say anything, because the geas has closed in and cut his words off again.

“I can’t do anything for the sword,” says Caleb. “Or the tapestry. Or the Pillow Trove, we’re too far from Zadash. But there should be bathhouses in the town, and I can help with the sleep. And speaking with Jester.”

He is helping with the sleep, and not just because of that necklace. The first night back with the Mighty Nein had been spent _in chains_ , and while Molly gets why they’d stuck him in them, would absolutely have done the same to anyone else if their positions were reversed, it’s. It’s not _great_ , sleeping in chains. For a moment he had thought he was back in the dungeons, for a moment he had thought the coat and the people and their sheer _gentleness_ had just been some dream.

There’s still some tiny part of him, stuck in that cramped stone cell in the depths of gods know where, that’s half-convinced this is all a dream. A good one, but a dream nonetheless.

It helps, having someone warm next to him, he’s found, because it dispels that idea when it’s strongest: in the morning, just after waking up. It helps even more that it’s Caleb, although like hell is Molly going to say that, right now. Caleb’s skittish as fuck on the best of days, and anyway, Molly’s not the same as he was, seven months ago, when he’d been about to say something about this giant crush, when he’d _just about_ gotten the nerve up to try and be a little more open about it.

And then he’d died, and that courage had utterly gotten trampled on, and now he’s right back where he started. Maybe even a couple steps further away from where he started, in the wrong direction.

“I am so sorry,” Caleb starts.

Molly leans forward, presses a finger to Caleb’s lips, and shakes his head, charms jingling on his horns. This isn’t really Caleb’s fault. This isn’t anyone’s fault, except that fuck Lorenzo and then Astrid and Ikithon. There isn’t anything for anyone in the Nein to be sorry for, and Molly will keep telling them that for the rest of his days if he has to. Although he’s half-certain his days might be numbered, no way is he going to be lucky enough to cheat death a third time.

Caleb huffs out a breath when Molly drops his finger, and says, “I get it, I get it. It does not change the fact that this is my past, trying to swallow you whole.”

It’s not exactly _just_ Caleb’s past, Molly knows for a fact that Lucien asshole had something to do with all of this, was probably even the catalyst whose mess Molly is now saddled with. Both their pasts are coming back to bite them, in the worst way possible, not just Caleb’s. Astrid doesn’t even know that Molly knows Caleb, or Yasha—he has the feeling that if she did, he wouldn’t be here right now. She’s not dumb enough for that.

He huffs out a breath and shakes his head again. Then he points at himself, then Caleb.

“What do you mean?” Caleb asks.

“You know it’s not just your past involved in this, right?” says Molly. “I told you, she was involved with the ritual that—ugh, Lucien died from.” A memory flickers, and he shoves away the sound of chanting, the ritual’s words just distant enough that he can’t quite make them out. Not that he wants to. “She doesn’t know you’re here. I don’t think she even knows where you are right now. Best I can tell, she just knows I got away, an employee of hers is dead, and I’m nowhere to be found. She doesn’t know about you.” He pats Caleb’s cheek. “Remember what I said during that thing with Cali and her bowl?”

“ _Ja_ , you said there were only so many burdens we could carry,” says Caleb, and gods bless the man’s perfect memory. And curse his apparent wall of issues, too, while they’re at it. “Why, does it apply now?” he asks, in a tone that says he damn well knows it does, but for the sake of the geas, he’s asking anyway. Nice of him.

“Oh, yes, it does,” says Molly. “To you and everyone else. But you right now—so a figure from your past happens to have a grudge against me, it doesn’t mean your past is trying to swallow me whole. It just means that the previous unlucky bastard who had this body pissed off someone who you knew, and she just can’t let go of that. It’s not _your_ burden to bear, Caleb.”

“Is it yours?” Caleb asks.

Molly huffs out a mirthless laugh. “Only so far as the shit she left behind in my head,” he says, and he means to be cheery, he really does, but the bitterness creeps in anyway. “That I would love not to bear anymore, long as no one gets hurt. Otherwise—the person she held a grudge against is dead. I’m not holding on to whatever burdens were dragging him down a very dark path. It’s just not a good way to live, letting yourself be weighed down by burdens that aren’t even yours to bear.”

“What about the ones that are?” Caleb asks. There’s a genuine curiosity there now, and he’s leaning forward, clasping his hands together on top of his knee.

Molly looks down at his hands, and thinks of the faded scar on Yasha’s neck, Jester’s eyes turning black and weeping blood, a stranger in the mirror. He knows, then: he’s not coming out of this without something heavy weighing down his heart. “You carry them as best as you can,” he says. “You don’t add more. Or you try your hardest not to.” It’s Gustav’s advice he’s remembering now, saying now—oh, hell, _Gustav_ , did the Mighty Nein ever tell him? Or anyone else from the circus besides Yasha? He should ask, maybe. It’s not likely they’ve ever met back up with anyone else, or gone back to Trostenwald, but he should still ask.

The geas closes in before he can go on that tangent, and instead, all that comes out of him is a frustrated sigh. He looks up to meet Caleb’s blue eyes.

Caleb looks down and away, huffs out a breath. “It is my responsibility, though, in a way,” he says. “I want to stop this—what happened to you, what happened to me—from happening to anyone else.” Sounds like he’s been hanging out with Beau, and sure enough he adds, “I have other goals, but Beauregard and I are working on the most immediate one.”

Tall order, that. There’s a lot more people in this mess than just Molly, and—he doesn’t know if any of them can be saved. He half-remembers dead eyes, dead voices—living bodies, certainly, but everything else had been thoroughly stomped out, replaced by the Empire’s words. Like they were puppets dancing on the Empire’s strings.

A little more time, and Molly might’ve been one of them, just as blank and dead-eyed, just a pretty little marionette dancing to the Empire’s tune. He shivers at the thought. That’s a far, far worse fate than dying in the snow, to the point where Molly finds he kind of prefers the snow.

Caleb, it seems, caught the shiver, because he moves forward to tuck Molly’s hair behind his ear, smoothing it away from his face. He’s so close. He even rubs his thumb over Molly’s cheek, and Molly can feel a faint trace of oil and grime in its wake. It doesn’t stop his heart from beating just a little bit faster anyway, just at the contact.

His eyes flick downwards to Caleb’s mouth. He could kiss him. Right here, right now.

He doesn’t. He lets the moment pass, instead, lets Caleb tuck his hair back behind his ears, reverent and gentle and careful. Not careful like he’s trying to avoid being cut on something sharp, but careful like he doesn’t want to break Molly even further. Like he’s scared that he could, and if Molly thought about it, he’d say that yeah, Caleb could break him further, if he wanted.

But Molly trusts him not to. Knows he won’t, in fact, because Caleb’s nothing like Astrid or Ikithon or anyone else he used to be friends with from the Academy, here and now. None of them would step in front of a Lawmaster for a chained goblin girl, and none of them would go down into the depths of a prison to bail two different families out of trouble, and none of them would touch him like this. Like he’s a person.

It’s fucked up, Molly knows that. Everything about this whole situation’s pretty fucked up, anyway. He’ll take his joys where he can get them.

Caleb’s hands move, framing Molly’s face, his calloused palms warm against Molly’s cheeks, and Molly meets his eyes. They’re blue, startlingly so, but Molly can see flecks of green in there, this close. The geas chokes off his words before he can say them: _did you know I’ve been wondering what your eyes look like up close for a while now?_

“Did you get our note?” says Caleb, quietly, almost hopeful.

“There was a note?” says Molly, confused. “I don’t—you left me a note?”

The heartbreak on Caleb’s face says more than Caleb himself ever could. “ _Ja,_ ” he says, softly, “we did. In case of what happened.”

Oh. Well. Fuck.

Molly shakes his head. Caleb shuts his eyes and breathes out, a soft, sad sigh. “I thought you wouldn’t,” he says. “Not if Astrid found you. We were not encouraged to be sentimental people.”

An understatement. If someone forces you into killing your family, they’re probably not huge on sentimentality and free will in their subordinates, but Molly keeps his mouth shut. Mostly just because the geas is forcing it closed. There’s so much he’s missing out on, because of this _fucking_ spell, and the web of spells it’s a part of.

“ _Sag etwas,_ Mollymauk.”

Molly huffs out a breath. Caleb’s hands are still on his face, warm against his skin. He can feel Caleb’s pulse against his cheek, steady and sure. “What was on that note?” he asks.

“ _Your name is Mollymauk Tealeaf_ ,” Caleb recites, his eyes sliding shut and his voice taking on the tone of a storyteller as his hands fall away from Molly’s face. “ _You’re a member of the Mighty Nein. If you’re reading this, that means you’ve woken up, and we were not there. We’re sorry about this, but something very bad happened, and we don’t have the time or the space to explain. Go south to Zadash, find the Gentleman in the Evening Nip—if the bartender asks, tell him you have no coin, but you bring many gifts. We’ll find you, we promise, and we’ll explain. We miss you._ ” He opens his eyes. “I signed it _The Mighty Nein_ ,” he says. “We were not so mighty, that time. We were so fractured, especially after— _after_ , we barely had any idea what to do.”

_We’ll find you. We miss you._

Molly’s heart, just patched messily together, cracks once more. The lump in his throat grows, to the point where if it hadn’t been for the geas, he’d be able to blame that for strangling his voice.

They’d missed him. They’d _missed_ him. They left him a note and a way to find them, and if Astrid had never found him then this reunion could’ve happened so much sooner.

He mourns, for that. For the person he’d honestly liked being, happy and free and not weighed down by this—the awareness that someone used him, used his body, to do the kind of things that he would never have done, otherwise. Whatever else Molly is now, he’s not quite the same person who was buried by the side of Glory Run Road.

He mourns, then he lets it go. There’s no point in dwelling in what could’ve been, in what he used to be. He taps Caleb’s wrist with a finger, then points to his own mouth and opens it, shuts it again.

Caleb seems to get it, because he says, “ _Sag etwas,_ Mollymauk.”

“It was a good try,” says Molly, honestly, sincerely. “I’m almost sad I didn’t get to read it. Sounds like something that would’ve caught my attention right away.” Somewhere through the confused, panicked haze, he knows he would’ve seized on the assurance that he was loved, he was missed, he was being looked for. “Thank you for trying, really.” Even if all that happened was that the note had been thrown away. Probably. Molly kind of hopes it was. The Gentleman’s a shady asshole, but Astrid’s worse, and not half as interesting.

“We didn’t try hard enough,” says Caleb, but Molly hears the underlying thought: _I didn’t try hard enough_. “You cannot tell me that you don’t feel cheated by that. Do you?”

“‘Course I feel cheated,” says Molly, scooting away now and getting to his feet. “That’s seven months of my life I’m never getting back. That’s seven months with this,” and he taps his temple, “and this,” and he taps his throat, “and gods know what other surprises have been left behind.” His hands fall to his sides, and he sighs. “But I don’t feel cheated by any of you, and I don’t think you should start carrying this around with you, no matter how responsible you might feel for it because it’s tied to your past. I’ll keep saying that or writing that or _miming_ that until you get it.”

“We might’ve found you sooner,” says Caleb, standing up now too and tucking his hands into his pockets. Stubborn asshole. “We _should’ve_. I’d heard stories in the past few months, I _thought_ something was going on with the war behind the front lines, given some—very suspicious deaths, lately, but I didn’t think—I didn’t realize that it was you that they dragged in. Wasn’t it?”

“It wasn’t,” says Molly, fiercely, trying to stomp down on the hurt. It’s just a question, a way of ensuring that he can answer, he shouldn’t feel _hurt_ Caleb had to ask. “Sort of. It was, but I had no say in any of it.” He slices his hand through the air for emphasis. “It’s a bit like—I was tied up in the back of the cart and someone else was steering the horses, is how it felt like.”

He regrets saying that the moment it’s out of his mouth, because Caleb looks a little stricken at the words, flinching back. Right, Molly’d been chained up in the back of the cart at the start of all this.

“I should’ve at least suspected,” Caleb says, running a hand through his hair.

Molly shakes his head. God, honestly, this is getting annoying. He steps forward, into Caleb’s space, and grabs his elbow.

“All right, what do you want?” huffs Caleb.

“For you not to blame yourself,” says Molly. “You couldn’t have known. Whatever stories there were, not only would they have been few and far between, they would’ve gotten so many details completely wrong. There was—I remember a lot of night work, vaguely. Did you do a lot of that?”

“Not always, not to the degree I think you were used for, but _ja_ , we often did,” says Caleb, tugging slightly at his scarf, like he wishes he could be talking about literally anything else. Molly wishes they could talk about anything else, but this is important, he needs to hammer the point through Caleb’s skull and he needs more time to do it in. “The cover of darkness helped to better hide us from insurgents, rebels, traitors, anyone who could identify us.” There’s a lot more he’s not telling him, Molly’s certain, but he’ll let Caleb have some secrets left over. “But that doesn’t matter, you’re one of us, we should’ve looked harder. Ah, _sag etwas_ , Mollymauk.”

“There were anti-scrying wards all over the place whenever I wasn’t out, you couldn’t have found me even if you knew,” says Molly. “And I’d be surprised if you were even halfway to figuring it out, smart as you are. I—don’t remember it very well, but I did my best not to leave a mark behind.” He shrugs, trying to ignore the memory bubbling up in the back of his head. _Leave no trace_ —his own voice, or Astrid’s? He doesn’t care to check. “Don’t, okay? End of the day, what you did and didn’t do, what everyone did and didn’t do, that doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that _you found me_.”

“Late,” says Caleb, biting his lip, his breath hissing out between his teeth. There’s a look in his eye like he hasn’t expected this, like it’s going against how he thought or even how he wanted this to go, and he’s trying to push it back. “Do you not mind that?”

“I mind, I won’t lie, but what’s the use of dwelling on that?” Molly rocks back onto his heels, tail lashing about and aching dully. It’s not as bad as it had been, but he thinks there’s always going to be a slight twinge there, no matter how much healing Jester pours into him. “There’s no getting that time back,” he says, and his irritation does seep into his voice despite his best efforts. “All we can do is just—try to make the best of a bad situation. And this is a _terrible_ situation to be in.”

“That is an understatement,” says Caleb, which, uh, yeah, obviously. Then he sighs and fidgets with the bandages around his wrists. “I can make the situation a little better, though. Like I said, I can—I can at least make sure you can talk to someone besides myself, I am not good company.”

Molly can’t really protest that, but only because he can’t _talk_. Caleb’s been surprisingly good company, for someone who once walked right out of the room because his social anxiety got the best of him. The fact that he can’t see this incredibly obvious fact is a crying shame, really.

“ _Beantworte Jester’s Fragen,_ Mollymauk,” Caleb says. The order sinks into Molly’s mind, the web of spells shifting around to accommodate it, and Molly shivers at the prickling sensation that’s coming from inside his skull. Or what feels like the inside of his skull, anyway. This didn’t happen before, he’s not sure what it means. “I am going to ask Jester to come inside now, if you don’t mind.”

Molly shakes his head, sweeps a hand out toward the door. No, he doesn’t mind—in fact, he’s pretty sure Jester’s eavesdropping on them, just because it’s Jester, and it seems like something she’d do. He drops back onto the bed as Caleb moves away to the door, looking up at the ceiling and counting the cracks.

He’s at three cracks when Jester comes in, saying, “What were you guys even doing in here? I just heard lots of arguing.”

“It was a little bit of arguing,” says Molly, without really thinking about it, pushing himself up to a sitting position to see Jester staring at him in shock. “Not that much, surely.” Then he pauses, and grins. “Hi, Jester,” he says, just before Jester gives a delighted cry and launches herself at him again.

“You answered me!” says Jester, her arms wrapping around him for the second time in a day.

The geas closes in then, but for once he can’t really bring himself to care. He laughs, holds her close too, scratches lightly at her scalp.

Caleb says, leaning against the door, “Again, this is only a stopgap—we are still figuring out how to get past all the other limitations, but at least if you ask him questions he will answer you, specifically.”

Jester breaks away from Molly, hops up onto the bed right next to him. Her eyes are bright and full of giddy relief, and it eases something in Molly’s chest to see her so happy again. Genuinely happy, not the kind of happy they’re all becoming experts at lately, where it’s just a thin veneer covering the broken hearts underneath it. Molly’s become an expert at it himself, much as he hates to admit it.

But if Jester’s happy, he’s happy. And hell—he’s _talking_. He’s spent so long as a silent shadow that being able to speak his mind at all feels like a novelty.

She says, “Remember when you said you thought someone in the group was like, really hot?”

Oh, no.

“Yyyyyes?” he hazards, casting his memory back. Right, after Cree saw him, wasn’t it?

Jester’s smile gets even wider. “Who was it?” she says, leaning in close and wiggling her shoulders. “You can tell me! And Caleb too, I guess.”

Molly has never been more grateful for the fact that his eyes are a solid red with no pupils, because he can’t help but glance Caleb’s way. His mind brings up the image of Caleb in the moonlight, somehow beautiful despite the dirt and grime, and Molly’s throat goes dry. That, the geas has nothing to do with. He swallows, or tries his best to, looks back at Jester, and says, “I’m not going to answer that. I have to keep a _little_ bit of mystery.”

She pouts like something fierce, and Caleb laughs a little bit, warm and low. Molly’s heart beats faster against his ribcage, scratching at his bones like it wants to be loosed. He wants to say something, without needing an order or a question. He wants Caleb to believe him when he does say something, no matter how impossible it might sound to someone who seems hell-bent on blaming himself for everything that’s gone wrong. He wants—

Well, he wants a lot of things, but he’s not going to get any of them, right now. So he swallows it back and grins at Jester, who huffs mightily and crosses her arms, mock-glaring at him. It feels good, not having to worry about what’s going to happen if he doesn’t answer someone’s questions, or if he answers them and they don’t like it. It feels _good_ just being able to speak his mind. The worst Jester’s going to do to him is huff and puff and grumble about how stupid mystery is, or come up with some idea to try and needle it out of him anyway, and sure enough:

“I could send Caleb out,” she says. “Would you tell me then?”

“Not even then,” says Molly, cheery. “I’m afraid the knowledge,” _is a secret I will take to my grave,_ he almost says, but he remembers that he already kind of did, and maybe reminding Jester and Caleb of his death might not be the best plan, “is something I’ll be keeping to myself for now.”

Jester pouts at him again. Then she looks around and says, “Where’s Frumpkin, anyway? At least he’s more honest.” She sends Molly a dirty glare, but he can see the smile threatening to break through.

Caleb snaps his fingers, and Frumpkin appears on Molly’s lap, stretching his back and yawning. His tail sways back and forth, and he kneads his little kitty claws into Molly’s thighs. Which, _ow_ , Frumpkin.

“Frumpy!” Jester says, scooping Frumpkin up and cooing at him, rubbing the tip of her nose against Frumpkin’s. “You are such a cute kitty, yes, you are! The _cutest_. Molly’s been hogging you a lot, hasn’t he?”

Molly decides not to answer this question. He kind of has been hogging the cat a lot, lately. In his defense, Frumpkin is cute, adorable and fluffy, and Molly kind of needs that.

“I wouldn’t say _a lot_ ,” Caleb says, from where he’s still leaning against the door. “Would you, Mollymauk?”

Molly opens his mouth to answer, pauses when he feels the geas close its claws around his throat, then shuts it. He waves a hand over the hollow of his throat, and mimes cutting across it, shaking his head.

Caleb frowns.

The space between Jester’s eyebrows creases up, her nose scrunching up. She’s still got Frumpkin in her hands, but now she settles him onto her lap. “Molly? Is something wrong?” she asks.

The geas loosens then, and Molly says, “Caleb, ask me a question again.”

“Uh,” says Caleb. “What was the name of the town we all met up in?”

The geas closes in before Molly can answer. He shakes his head, the glee at outsmarting the spells dissipating as the realization sinks in. They didn’t actually outsmart the spells, did they. They’re just working within the parameters set by the web of spells that Astrid’s laid in his head.

Bile rises in his throat. He swallows it back, glances at Jester.

“What’s going on?” she asks, but he gets the feeling she already knows. She’s a perceptive person, after all. The question’s just her looking for confirmation.

“I think we’ve got a problem,” says Molly.

\--

Yasha comes back with a bag overstuffed with bagels and Nott riding on her back, idly braiding her hair. It’s nice, having Nott braid her hair, the little goblin’s an expert at it, and every so often Yasha can feel her threading something into the braid and murmuring a couple of words over it before patting it in. Sort of like a spell, she thinks, but Nott isn’t quite as gifted with spells as her friend and mentor is. Smart, though. Very smart.

Yasha ducks low under the doorway, to keep Nott from hitting her head against the top of the doorframe. Beau and Fjord are still at the same table, but now Molly’s there too, sandwiched between Jester and Caleb, looking a little better now. Less panicked and horrified, at least.

She sees him leaning slightly against Caleb, and for a moment while Caleb’s talking, Yasha catches sight of Molly turning his head just enough to look at him. Molly’s face goes soft, eyes focusing on Caleb like there’s no one else in the room, and Yasha can swear she sees a small, sad smile touch his lips.

Hupperdook drifts to the front of her mind, suddenly. She’d glanced at Molly, when he’d hauled Caleb up to ask him to cast Detect Magic on everything around them, and seen that look in his eyes then, too. If Yasha were more poetic, were any better with her words, she’d call that look the one that makes her think Molly’s imagining moonlight in Caleb’s hair, or something like that. But she’s not, so she calls it what it is: Molly’s _I’m in love and I know it but I’m not going to say anything about it because I’m not sure how right now_ look.

Nott says, loudly, “Hey! We bought bagels and shit!”

And that breaks whatever spell’s on Molly, as well as the quiet din of conversation between the other four. Five heads turn to Yasha and Nott, expectant and even a little bit surprised.

Yasha holds the bag up. “Hi,” she says. “We bought a lot of bagels. They taste pretty good, and three of them are stuffed with meat.”

“I want some of _that_ ,” says Beau, like Yasha figured she might. She reaches into her bag and tosses Beau the three meat bagels. Beau snatches them out of the air with a grin, and then plops down onto her chair again and takes a bite, chews, swallows. “ _Damn_ , this is good.”

“Hey, you planning on sharing?” says Fjord, and Beau looks at him and, very deliberately without breaking eye contact, bites right into her meat bagel again.

“Hey, Yasha, watch this,” says Jester. To Molly, she says, “Hey, Molly, do you want a meat bagel?”

Yasha’s about to ask just what is she supposed to watch when Molly— _Molly_ —says, “Those sound good, I’d love one, if Beau hasn’t somehow shoved all three in her mouth just yet.” He looks away from Jester, then to Yasha, and says, casually, “Hi, Yasha.”

“You’re not getting a meat bagel out of me,” says Beau, flatly.

“What the _fuck_ happened while we were away?” says Nott, clambering down off Yasha and scampering forward. Yasha shakes her head after a moment and follows after her, her thoughts a whirl. They’ve done it. They’ve _done_ it. “Molly can talk to other people now? Jester! Did you fix him?”

Jester’s smile drops, as does Molly’s. “Um,” says Jester.

“It was me,” Caleb speaks up. “I—ordered him to answer Jester’s questions. But that kind of order does not—what is the word again? Stack? So he can answer Jester’s questions now, but not mine.”

The giddy relief floating into Yasha’s throat falls back into the pit of her stomach, turning into a lead weight of disappointment on the way down. “Oh,” she says, glancing at Molly, who summons up a reassuring smile from somewhere. It looks brittle, ready to break apart at any moment, but she appreciates the effort anyway. She doesn’t quite feel like making it right now, anyway.

She sits next to Beau, but knocks her foot against Molly’s. After a moment, she feels his ankle bump against hers, and that’s reassuring the way the smile wasn’t. She plops the bag of bagels down, letting everyone else make a grab for one. Nott clambers over Jester and Molly to get to Caleb, settling on the side of Caleb that’s not occupied by a tiefling at the moment.

“The Zemnian thing’s still Caleb, though,” says Fjord. “Anyway, we’re gonna need to split up, again: Caleb wants to get started on getting into the other library, the one that’s associated with the Academy, what’s its name?”

“Why do we keep _going near the Academy_?” huffs Jester. Yasha feels the same way. They really need to stop doing that, they are harboring two people who are currently fugitives from the Soltryce Academy. Going near the Academy, even just its people and its auxiliaries, is not the greatest plan they’ve ever concocted.

“Because we have never faced a risk we didn’t immediately take no matter how bad it looked,” says Molly. “Unless that’s changed in the seven months I’ve been out?”

“No,” says Yasha, taking a bite of her own meat bagel.

“We’re not going near the Academy, we’re just going to get information,” says Fjord.

“I know that, but _still_.” And Jester takes a bite of her bagel, after that, chewing with a faint look of peeved resignation on her face.

“They will not know it’s me,” says Caleb, waving a hand at his—well, everything. “It’s been years, and I was in an asylum. Besides, we aren’t even going to the library as of yet, we are only trying to find someone who can give us papers to get inside.”

“I’ll come with you,” says Nott, to Caleb, firmly. “When something’s _only_ it’s never just _only_ , with us. Remember that job from Summervale?”

“ _Fuck Summervale_ ,” says Beau. “Barely got out with our lives then.”

Yasha groans, slumping in her seat. She hears Beau curse some more with Nott backing her up, Fjord and Caleb sigh, Jester mutter darkly, and Molly—

Molly blinks at all of them, confusion clear on his face. Oh. Right. They had Caduceus, instead, not Molly, and Yasha feels her stomach turn—they haven’t caught Molly all the way up yet. He grabs for his notebook and pencil again and writes, _when did you go to sumervayl what hapend ther that evryone hates it its not a bad plase_.

“The Lawmaster who gave us the job was trying to get us fucking _killed_ , that’s what happened,” says Beau.

“And he was actually a cultist from Cali’s old cult!” says Nott. “You remember Cali, right, Molly?”

Molly nods, frowning. Yasha knocks her ankle against his and reaches her hand across the table, and he glances at her, looks down at her hand. He reaches back, fingers tangling with hers, and his shoulders slump slightly.

“He was a dick anyway even without the part where he was an evil cultist,” says Jester, pulling out her journal and flipping through the pages. She scoots closer and points at a figure on the page, as Molly leans in to see. “Here, see? I drew him. It’s super accurate.”

“No, it isn’t, I think you forgot to add that thing on his head that _seemed_ like hair,” says Caleb, also leaning in. “It was horrifying.”

“Technically that sort of was hair, technically,” says Jester, “just not _his_ actual hair. It looked like goat fur.”

“How do you know these things?” says Nott, in awe as she scrambles closer. The four of them seem to huddle up together, completely lost in the story of the drawing, the strategy session set aside for now.

Molly snickers at the drawing, at the story Jester’s telling, and a real smile breaks like dawn across his face. Something warm blooms in Yasha’s heart, spreading into her lungs with every beat of the stubborn old thing, at the sight and the sound.

She looks away from Molly, at Beau, whose own cocksure smirk has faded, whose eyes have gone hooded. Fjord’s watching too, and she catches his yellow-eyed gaze. She nudges closer to Beau, and Fjord huddles closer too.

“We gotta keep Molly away from these fucks,” says Beau, quietly. “But we gotta keep an eye on him, too. In case shit happens.”

“Agreed,” says Yasha, fiercely. “On both points. I don’t—I don’t like the idea of leaving him alone.” If it wasn’t for the Nein, if she didn’t trust these people half as much as she does, she’s pretty sure she’d stay close to Molly, keep him in her sight, take him with her when she needs to go. He’s been through enough, already.

“Yeah, you, me, and everyone else at this table,” Fjord murmurs. “Including Molly.”

“So at least one of us needs to stay with him,” Beau says. She’s pressed against Yasha’s side and she is very, very warm. “I could do it. I’ve gotten way too good at fighting him off.”

“I could,” says Yasha. “I’m really fucking tough, I can take it.”

“Probably I could,” says Fjord.

“I don’t think you could,” says Jester, startling them. Yasha scoots away from Beau, but the warmth of Beau’s body along Yasha’s side stays, like a brand. “It’s not a super big table, and you guys got a little loud. Hey, Molly, who do you think could take you in a fight?”

“You and Yasha, hands down, you’re the strongest,” says Molly, buffing his nails on his dress. “Nott, maybe, she’s good at sneaking up on people. Caleb, no, he needs to invest in something that can actually keep him from dying horribly. Also, I can and have kicked Beau’s ass at least twice, and if it wasn’t for the fact that he used fucking Blink I’d have kicked Fjord’s ass days ago, too.”

Nott preens, a little.

“Fuck you, I kicked your ass and you know it,” says Beau.

“You needed our help,” says Jester.

“I still kicked his ass!”

“Um, thanks,” says Yasha, caught off-guard. “So, um—I guess Jester and I are Molly-sitting? Do you mind, Molly? Jester?”

“Nope!” says Jester. “You and me, we’re gonna get Molly lots of things! I promised him a shopping trip, anyway, so.”

Molly shakes his head, and again bumps his ankle against hers, a reassurance. He smiles at her, before scribbling something in his notebook.

“And I’ll be seeing to finding a way into that library,” says Caleb.

“Beau and Nott and I’ll back him up,” says Fjord. “Beau’s from the Cobalt Soul, she can get him in through the door, Nott and I can cast Disguise Self and hang around outside.”

“I’m _great_ at talking to people now, anyway, I could lie my way in if I wanted to,” Nott boasts. “As long as I’ve got a disguise up I can be the face of this agency!”

“I thought _I_ was the face,” huffs Jester. “We agreed I was!”

Molly raises an eyebrow at her. The tip of his tail smacks lightly against Yasha’s ankle, and she sinks slightly under the table. After a moment, she feels his notebook and pencil press into her hand, and she straightens up to flip it open to the last page he wrote on. There’s the question about Summervale near the top, and a retort to Beau just underneath that, but for this one, Molly’s made an effort to make his handwriting look a little bit more legible than usual.

 _what hapend with Not whyl I was gon,_ he’s written, in careful cursive. He’d always complained that cursive was too damn hard, but made the effort for her after she’d mentioned she liked how it looked.

Yasha scribbles, _She started making explosive crossbow bolts, that’s all. She hasn’t gotten better at talking to people._ She passes it back, discreetly, and sees the way Molly’s eyebrows go up into his hair, before he glances at Nott and scoots slightly further into Jester’s space.

“And then after that, we’ll start askin’ ‘round about this Rattlesnake,” says Fjord, breaking in to catch everyone’s attention. “Get a better picture of the guy than we’ve got right now.”

“Markos Rojen,” Jester helpfully supplies. “That’s his name.”

 _how do you ~~ryte~~ wryt that_ , Molly writes.

“Gimme that and I’ll show you,” says Jester, pointing to Molly’s notebook and pencil. He shrugs and passes both to her, and she writes something with a flourish before handing it back to him. Then he breaks into a little fit of giggles before passing the notebook off to Yasha, which is weird, Yasha’s not sure what it is Jester wrote or drew that he’d—oh, it’s a dickbutt. Of course it’s a dickbutt. It’s Jester.

She looks up, and sees Jester smiling too, soft and quiet and a little bit sad. The moment she catches Yasha looking, though, the sadness falls away, and her grin is blinding.

Molly, Yasha thinks, is not the only one wearing a smile like a mask, right now.


	18. step out and face the sunshine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Frank Turner’s “The Next Storm”.

For the second time in one day, the Mighty Nein splits up.

Nott’s not a big fan of all this splitting up, if you ask her, honestly. They’re stronger now, sure, and they’re a little more paranoid and ready to fuck someone up too. Some part of her, though, still can’t help but remember that horrible, awful day when she woke up to find the other half of their little detective agency just—gone. Vanished into the ether, like a ghost who was never even there.

They don’t try to contact Verrin, because she’s off in some other bar, probably drinking until she passes out. Besides, once Caleb asks where Lady Margaret’s Hall is, the bartender’s happy enough to give them directions, although they get a little side-eye for wanting to go in the middle of a festival.

On their way out, Nott slips a charm into one of Molly’s many pockets. He doesn’t notice, too absorbed in gesturing wildly to Yasha, and Nott ducks under a hand before he can ruffle her hair. Or accidentally smack her in the face while he’s waving his hands around. Then she slips a charm into Jester’s pocket, as they step out into the sun.

Tries to, anyway, because Jester’s tail flicks lightly against Nott’s wrist. “Whatcha doing?” she asks, turning to Nott. “Nott?”

“Surprise,” says Nott, lamely, caught red-handed. The charm’s still there in her hand, damn it, and Jester’s peering down at her with a bemused look. “Um.”

“Were you trying to sneak something out of my pocket?” says Jester, frowning, and oh, no, she looks _hurt_. Nott shakes her head, and holds the charm up for her to see it better. Shouldn’t have done it, because Jester bends down a moment later for that exact reason. “Oh—that’s not mine!”

“It is now,” says Nott, giving up the pretense of a surprise with a sigh. “I stole it from a very grumpy person who didn’t deserve it, and it’s very pretty, so I figured having it on you would make you look even prettier.” And maybe give her a little bit of luck. All the books Caleb has says magic doesn’t work that way, but all the books Caleb has can be very limited anyway, and it’s worked before. She did the ritual and everything, remembering how their old oracle would speak over animal bones, human bones, little trinkets, and cast spells and shit on them that would give someone a boost, or protect them from Big Trouble.

She’s more magical than that little old shithead ever was, she knows that. Her protection spells work.

Jester whistles lowly, holding the charm up to the light. It’s a small golden flower with costume sapphires making up the petals, attached to a hairtie that _stretches_ , as proved when Jester pulls her hair back and ties it up. “How’s it look?” she asks.

“It looks _great_ ,” says Nott, giving her a thumbs-up.

“Thanks, Nott!” says Jester, grinning brightly. It warms something in Nott’s chest, to see her so happy. “Oh, here,” and she tugs Nott forward into a hug. “I didn’t get you anything,” she whispers, “but I will. I know you like shiny things a lot.”

“You don’t have to,” says Nott, patting her back.

“I want to,” says Jester, letting her go and standing back up. “We’ll see you guys later?”

“Of course,” says Nott, and she watches Jester skip off to join Molly and Yasha, humming a song that Nott vaguely remembers hearing once, in Felderwin. Then she turns to catch back up with Caleb, Beau and Fjord.

“—start by asking who to ask and work our way up,” Fjord’s saying. Caleb’s patting himself down, the way he does when he’s categorizing what spell components he still has in his coat and might need to use. Beau’s leaning against her staff, seemingly disinterested, but her eyes are focused on Fjord. “Nott and I’ll keep watch outside, disguised. If things go south—”

“Send a Message,” Caleb completes. “We will need a— _mir liegt es auf der Zunge_ , a word that when we use it means everything has gone completely to shit and we must get out?” He snaps his fingers, muttering in Zemnian.

“Watch word,” says Nott, the phrase coming to her in a flash, and Beau almost jumps.

“ _Fuck,_ don’t do that!” Beau huffs.

“Don’t do what,” says Nott, as innocently as possible, sliding the porcelain mask over her face as the four of them get to walking. Beau scowls at her, but sighs and falls in step beside Fjord. “What about— _Jenga_?”

“What does that mean, _Jenga_?” says Caleb.

“Nothing,” Nott says. “It’s just a nonsense word we made up for when shit went south, when we stole stuff from the villagers. I used it a _lot_ so eventually the backup stopped coming when I said it.” Okay, maybe that was a bit too much to say judging from everyone’s slightly freaked-out faces.

“Okay, definitely not _Jenga_ ,” says Fjord.

“What about _Uno_?” says Beau. “You ever heard that before?”

Caleb, weirdly, chokes on something, and Nott whips around for a moment, terrified that he might be hurt while she wasn’t watching him—but no, he’s just covering up a surprised laugh with a cough. “No,” he says, and she’s pretty sure he’s lying. “Not at all.”

“Never heard it here,” says Nott.

“ _Uno_ it is,” says Fjord. “We hear _Uno_ , we’re coming in with crossbows blazing. Crossbow blazing.”

“Crossbows plural,” says Nott. “I’ve been practicing this trick with Jester where I can dual-wield crossbows.” She diligently ignores the incredulous and slightly terrified looks Beau and Fjord send her way, because she’s not stupid, she knows it’s not exactly easy. But she has two crossbows and a bunch of explosive arrows now, why shouldn’t she put them to good use?

“Maybe save it for another fight,” Caleb says, stepping to the side as someone dances past them with a wild laugh. “Unless things go terribly wrong, it should not take us more than a few minutes to get started.”

“And if things go to shit I’ll keep your boy not dead,” Beau says, which is all Nott really needs to hear. “We’ll let you know if anything happens. And if you guys see anything on your side that means shit’s gonna hit the fan—”

“ _Uno_ ,” says Fjord, at the same time Nott does.

“What’s our cover story?” says Beau, as they walk on. “Gotta be something to do with research, but something that won’t seem too weird. But something that’s related to fixing Molly’s head.”

“I am an academic from another academy wishing to learn about spells that could be used to control the minds and wills of others, for a dissertation that is due in a month,” says Caleb, as if he’s reciting off a slate that’s being held up in front of him. “I am very tired, and my only goal is to pass my exam so I can graduate at last.”

“You could if you wanted to,” says Nott. “You’re the smartest person I know!”

“And if they ask for papers from that academy?” says Fjord.

“I lost it because my monk friend and I were accosted by bandits on the way here,” says Caleb, adjusting his coat. He snaps his fingers, murmurs some words, and Nott sees the wave of magic wash over him, taking away the dirt and grime and soot on his face and his coat. “Do I look respectable?” he asks.

“Way more now,” says Nott, as Beau starts fixing her robes.

“Uh, no,” says Fjord, which, rude. Nott can’t help but bristle a little, because Caleb _does_ look more respectable than before. Cleaner, for one thing, goblins were never clean. “You look cleaner, though, that’s a start. If you want we could just stop by a shop, see if there’s anything in your size.”

“Nah, nah, this works,” says Beau, leaning on Fjord and squinting at Caleb. “I’ve seen academics working on their dissertations at the Cobalt Reserve before. They look worse than Caleb usually does.”

“I know,” says Caleb, dour as always as they keep walking on. “And it is almost time to defend those dissertations anyway, from what I remember.” He turns his collar up, adding a much-needed touch of mystery, in Nott’s opinion.

“Did you ever defend a dissertation?” Nott asks, scampering closer to her boy as an excited young boy and a half-elf woman wearing antlers run past them, shouting about groundings. Weird, what’s that supposed to mean?

“Once, before Trent took us from the Academy and into the program,” says Caleb. “It was terrible. I was writing on evocation magic during the Age of Arcanum, I had to rewrite the draft six times before my professor was even vaguely satisfied with my work.”

Nott can’t really fathom it. This is Caleb. She’s seen him in the midst of battle, who would be unsatisfied with anything that her boy can do? Then she remembers that Caleb himself is unsatisfied with anything he can do, so. That had to start somewhere.

She slips her hand into Caleb’s, and presses a small charm into his fingers before she breaks away to talk to Beau.

She glances back, though, and sees him smiling down at the little golden sun charm, before he discreetly slides it into a coat pocket. She smiles, and turns away.

\--

Molly-sitting is _awesome_ , Jester decides after a few minutes. When he’s not trying to stab someone, Molly’s happy enough to just drag Jester and Yasha everywhere that looks even vaguely interesting. Because this is a festival, that fits pretty much every stall they pass by, so only forty or so minutes after they’ve split off from everyone else, the three of them have already amassed a collection of Things That Caught Their Eyes.

They’re also out like twenty gold, though, so Jester figures, after the candy apples, that they should probably slow down.

“These taste _great_ ,” says Yasha.

Molly nods, enthusiastic. He bites into his own candied apple, makes a happy little noise after he swallows. Jester finds herself thinking of Hupperdook, of the Harvest Close in Zadash, the strawberry and the tapestry and how Molly had bowed to the audience and popped the strawberry in his mouth. It’s a little like that now, she thinks.

“We should stop by a game and try to win something,” she says. “Molly, what do you think?”

“I think that I could absolutely keep track of a ball no matter how fast someone’s hands are moving,” says Molly. “Usually, they’re slipping it up their sleeve. I used to when we ran that game.”

“I’m super good at seeing shit, too,” says Jester. “If you miss it, I can tell you!”

Yasha chews thoughtfully, swallows, and says, “Is there anything like the game with the hammer and the seesaw and the big rock here?”

“We could _all_ try,” Jester suggests, with a grin. She looks at Molly, who laughs and shakes his head, tugging his notebook and pencil out of his coat pocket to write something. “What?” she asks.

He doesn’t tuck the notebook back into a pocket, but he does stick the pencil behind his ear. It makes him look like an artist, like the ones back home who Mom used to sit for sometimes. “I’d love to join in and be humiliated in a very public setting, but I might have to pass on trying,” he says, apologetic. “It’s one thing to go dancing while everyone’s dancing, quite another to go up on a stage and call attention.” He shrugs. “Still, don’t let me stop either of you from eviscerating everyone else who wants to try. I’ll sit on the sidelines and cheer you muscle sisters on.”

“Muscle sisters!” Jester cheers, holding her fist out to Yasha. “Let’s wreck their shits!”

“We need to find where we can wreck their shits first,” Yasha points out.

“Let’s go find a place that needs its shit wrecked!” Jester amends.

Molly laughs. It’s a good sound, a good thing. It tells Jester that her friend is here, is back, is _alive_ , and not so damaged that she and the rest of the group can’t put him back together.

And there is a festival on, so she grabs Yasha’s arm and tugs her along, the three of them scanning the crowded streets for a worthy contest of strength as they meander along. Eventually, Molly stops in his tracks, squints at something in the distance, then taps her shoulder and waves a hand to a raised platform, where someone’s hauling a very heavy bucket up onto one side of a lever.

That’s a worthy contest of strength.

So Jester hurries towards the platform and calls, “Can we try? Can we try?”

“Uh,” says the boy hauling the bucket up, staring at the three of them. He’s pretty strong for someone who doesn’t look like he’s older than maybe nineteen. “Um. Well.” His eyes flick from Yasha, to Jester, to Molly. “All three of you?” he asks.

“Oh, no,” says Jester, “our friend’s here for emotional support! But Yasha and I are here to _win_.” She bares her teeth in an almost-triumphant grin. Almost, because they haven’t won yet, but it would be triumphant if they did. Will be when they do.

“We’re very strong,” Yasha adds.

Molly writes, _brok my arm carying crayts 1 time am only heer to be suportiv._

“Okay, so, two,” says the boy. “I’m. Um. Ah, lemme just go get Mel.” He sets the bucket down and rushes off the platform, shouting for someone named Mel.

“So after this,” Jester says, “we should check out all the temples in Lynbroke. You know. Just to see.”

“Oh, no,” says Yasha, deadpan.

Molly’s face scrunches up, and he looks up at Yasha. He taps her shoulder and Yasha glances down, and Jester isn’t sure how they’re doing this, but a second later Yasha just says, “I once had to cover for her because she drew a goatee on a statue of the Raven Queen.”

“Her mask is _really creepy_ , haven’t you ever wanted to draw something on it?” Jester says.

Molly snickers and says, “She does have a point, Yasha, I’ve always thought the Matron’s blank mask needed a good sprucing up.”

Yasha lets out a breath. “You’re going to have to give me the story if you two get caught,” she says to Molly, who beams up at her and starts flipping through his notebook, writing something down. “I’m not—good at lying, like either of you.” Then she pauses, as if reconsidering, and says, “No, I’m just not used to it like either of you.”

“We’re _great_ liars,” says Jester, primly. Molly nods, crossing his arms.

“I guess,” says Yasha, sounding doubtful.

“Hey!” a rough voice calls, and Jester whips around to see a half-orc woman lumbering over. She’s easily much, much taller than Jester, but only a couple of inches taller than Yasha is. Anyway the two of them could take her on, and Molly can just hang out on the sidelines. Plus she’s limping. So. “I’m Mel. You two tieflings the challengers?”

“Oh, no, Molly’s just here for support,” says Jester, cheerful, as Molly waves a hand. “Me and Yasha are here to take it on.”

Molly scribbles something in his notebook, holds it up. _whats the ~~pries~~ priez_ , he’s written. Mel squints at him, then looks him over. Then she looks at Yasha, and at Jester, with that same searching look, and makes a _tsk_ ing noise.

“Free entrance passes to Lynbroke’s best bathhouse, good for the whole festival, to those who can get the bucket completely off the plank with a blow on the other end,” says Mel. She looks the three of them up and down again, and says, “Seems like you lot might need those passes.”

Yeah, they definitely need a good long soak, Jester’s figured that much out. She has no idea how long it’s been since the last time she was able to unwind in a bathhouse. She glances at Molly, and sees him twirl a lock of purple hair around a finger, a little self-conscious the way she’s never seen him be before.

“We’ll take it,” says Yasha.

“Kinda hope you do win, you all stink,” Mel bluntly says. She nods to Molly and says, “Travel, huh?”

Molly nods.

“Can either of you do magic?” says Mel, gruffly.

“I can,” says Jester. “I’m their cleric.”

“Can’t say we get a lot of clerics out of heavy armor wanting to try,” Mel says, nodding to the bucket, “but knock yourself out, I guess. Just no magic.” She looks to Yasha and whistles lowly. “You wanna go first, big girl?” she says.

“Oh, no,” says Yasha. “I’ll, um. I’ll let Jester go first, have her chance.”

“That’ll be a silver for two tries,” says Mel. “So two silvers for the two of you.” She puts her hands on her hips and adds, “And you’re not the only tourists looking to take a crack at those passes.”

So Jester climbs up onto the stage first, after tossing Mel the two silvers. There’s a small crowd gathering around now, people drifting over to see the little blue tiefling lift the warhammer and either send the bucket flying or, like, snap in half, from what some people in the crowd are saying. Which, wow, rude, assholes. She’ll show them.

She lifts the hammer up over her head and, with a scream, slams it as hard as possible down on the end of the plank. It budges under the blow, but it’s not quite enough to dislodge the bucket on the other end. Another slam, and the bucket slides slightly, the water inside sloshing, but doesn’t fall off.

“Ugh,” she grumbles, tossing the hammer aside, but there’s a respectful smatter of applause as she steps down off the platform. “I really thought I was going to get it.”

“It was a pretty good effort,” says Yasha.

 _you did great,_ Molly writes. _sit wit me?_

Jester sighs, and sits down next to Molly as Yasha climbs the stairs and steps onto the platform. She leans against him after a moment, just basking in his warmth beside her. She’d half-thought she’d never get him back, even with his grave empty. “You never told me who you liked, you know,” she says, because—well, he didn’t. Not before he died.

Molly pauses, tilts his head towards her. The light catches on the moon charm dangling from his horn, and Jester blinks and sees a memory superimposed over the present: Molly, with charms and jewelry decorating him, grinning at her. She blinks again, and Molly’s still there, red eyes fixed on her.

“I’ll tell who I like if you tell me who you like,” she bargains, and Molly chuckles a little. She wants to hear that out of him more, she gets the feeling he hasn’t had a lot to laugh about, in a very long time. “Or I could guess! I’m very good at guessing.”

_youre stuborn but okay ges Ill let you kno if you got it._

“Is it me?” she jokes, and Molly shakes his head. “ _Aw._ ” She pouts, and something warm fills her chest when he laughs, looking back at the stage where Yasha’s testing the hammer’s swing, her face the blank mask of someone ready to rip someone else a new asshole. He looks back at her, twirls the pencil in his hand.

“Sorry,” he says. “You’re a very gorgeous woman, anyone can see that, but I’m afraid my attentions aren’t on you.”

“I forgive you,” says Jester, in her most generous tone, “I like someone else anyway.”

Molly pouts at her as he writes. _luky them._

“Is it Yasha?” she asks, and Molly shakes his head again, making a face like he’s considered the idea only once and then never again. “Come on! She’s really pretty and I’ve seen her check out Fjord’s ass one time. You guys have really never slept together?”

“That happened once,” he says, “and never again, it was just terrible and awkward for everyone involved. Me and Yasha aren’t—it’s never really worked that way, between us.”

Yasha, on the stage, swings the hammer down on the plank, but the blow only glances off. She sighs, and starts testing the swing again, like she’s trying to figure out what went wrong with it.

“Is it Fjord?”

Jester watches Molly closely, sees the too-bright grin and the flash of relief in his eyes at a viable option besides the one he’s really thinking of. Molly’s good at lying, she’ll be the first to admit that, but Jester is _very_ good at reading people too. And she knows that he’s lying when he says, still grinning, “You’ve caught me! Yes, it’s Fjord. In my defense, he does have quite a nice ass.”

“And his voice is _super_ sexy,” Jester agrees. “Y’know, tho, Caleb’s got the second sexiest voice.”

Molly goes still, then, and Jester knows then: she’s got him.

Then there’s a scream from the platform, and a moment later the bucket all but flies off the plank, spilling water out everywhere and splashing onto the part of the crowd unfortunate enough to sit near the right side of the platform. Yasha drops the hammer onto the floor, not even winded.

Molly jumps to his feet a fraction of a second before Jester, whooping with joy, does. He’s clapping, grinning wide as Yasha takes the three passes and walks down the stairs. Jester’s pretty sure she can see the relief there, like he’s planning on keeping a lid on—on this crush.

On Caleb.

Jester tears past him to give Yasha a hug, deciding to save her questions for Molly later. “Let’s go take a bath!” she cheers. “We smell really stinky.”

“That’s kind of what happens when you’ve been on the road a while,” says Yasha, awkwardly. She pats the back of her neck with her gloved hand, and Jester snickers into her chest and breaks away.

“ _Muscle sisters_ ,” she says, holding her fist out.

Yasha smiles, and bumps her knuckles against Jester’s. “Muscle sisters,” she says.

This, Jester decides, is turning out to be the best day of the festival. So far.


	19. take this weight off me now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Athlete's "Rubik's Cube".

This, Caleb decides, is turning out to be—not the _worst_ day of the festival so far, but it’s not great either.

“Who lets people _busk_ on the very steps of the _library_?” he says, as he and Beau are climbing up the stairs to Lady Margaret’s Hall. From the outside, it looks stately and regal, nine marble pillars with carved statues of legendary figures in the Empire’s history holding up the facade. Banners in hues of red, white and blue hang between them, weighed down by shining bells that tinkle softly above them. It’s a shame they hadn’t brought Nott and Fjord with them, he imagines Nott would marvel at the bells. “There is a place to do that and it is nowhere near the same place where you read—”

“You’re just angry ‘cause the guy almost threw a spell at Frumpkin,” says Beau, cutting him off. Frumpkin, draped on Caleb’s neck and not even singed because of his almost-brush with death, meows irritably at the reminder.

“Who tries to cast Thunderwave on a _cat?_ ” says Caleb, letting his voice rise a little. It’s not sensible, maybe, wasting a spell the way he did when he snapped out a Counterspell, but he doesn’t regret it. No one should cast combat spells on a defenseless cat. “That is a waste of a spell. You could use it for so many other things, not—not _killing cats_. What the fuck was wrong with him?”

“Yeah, it was super fucked up,” says Beau, before she pauses and looks up at the library’s doors, as they come to the top of it. Caleb suppresses a shiver—the library’s wards, it seems, start just as the aspiring mage steps off the final stair. It feels wrong, suddenly not having his magic in reach, suddenly unable to cast even a lick of flame. _He_ feels wrong, exposed to any threat that could descend upon him. “Do we just go in now,” says Beau, snapping Caleb out of his thoughts, “or—”

“Hello there!” calls a chirpy voice, and Caleb turns to see a dwarf, her beard neatly tied into a braid as she leans on the desk in front of her, elevated by her stool. She’s bald on top, but she has long bushy hair on the sides, braided back into a bun. Her eyes sweep from Caleb to Beau, taking in their general appearances and Frumpkin draped sadly over Caleb’s neck, and she winces in sympathy. Just as planned. “That time again, isn’t it?”

It’s not hard to sound haunted. “Yes,” says Caleb. “Sadly.”

“What month is it, again?” Beau says, rubbing at her eyes. “Fuck.”

“I have honestly no idea,” says Caleb, lying to sell the story. He damn well knows what month it is, but the less he stands out to this woman the better.

“You poor things,” the dwarf says, with a sigh, straightening up. There’s a little tag attached to her right breast that reads _Arvista_ , and sure enough: “I’m Arvista. Call me Arv. You’re here for research on whatever you want to do for your dissertation, I take it?”

“Oh, _ja_ ,” says Caleb, letting his nervousness show, running his hand through his hair. He is nervous, just not for the reasons he’ll be playing up for this woman. “My, hah, my friend Beau here, she is a monk of the Cobalt Soul, she agreed to help me with, ah, research on magic that could be used to affect people’s minds. Something about, um…”

“How to make people talk more about shit they don’t wanna talk about,” says Beau, disinterested. “Plus. This guy’s squishy as fuck and easily distracted. He needed an extra person on his side.”

“...yes,” says Caleb, because she’s not lying, there’s a reason why he stands at least twenty feet back from combat all the time.

“Oh, I think we have that,” says Arvista, “but first, I need to see your papers before I can let you in. Standard procedure.”

“My—My papers,” says Caleb, faintly, looking at Beau with wide eyes. “Oh. Uh. Um.” He points to her. “Her fault.”

“Remember when I said he needed an extra person on his side?” says Beau, with a tired sigh, rubbing at her temples with her fingers. “Actually he needs like, five other people on his side. We got fucking ambushed on our way here, and in that mess—” She snaps her fingers and says, “ _Whoomf_ , no more papers. And, also, asshole, it wasn’t _my_ fucking fault.”

“I told you not to touch that bag!” Caleb half-wails. “I cannot simply send word to my professor that the papers he secured for me went up in a burst of flame because you _threw the wrong bag_ —”

“You said get the flammable one!” Beau snaps, smacking his shoulder.

“They are _all_ flammable!”

Frumpkin, around Caleb’s neck, gives a sad but convincing meow. The bond between them is—fuzzier, with the wards in effect, so Caleb resorts to scratching Frumpkin’s head, to let him know he’s done well.

“Uh, hi, hello,” says Arvista, breaking into their mock-argument and leaning forward as much as she can, “are you telling me you _don’t_ have papers? Because then I think we may have something of a problem, here.”

“I _had_ papers, I had them,” Caleb says, desperation tinging his tone. “I swear, I had—please, just let me into the library, I have to finish this paper—”

“You could just ask for an extension,” Beau says.

“That would be like asking the sun to change its course,” Caleb says. “I need this _done_ in a month.”

“There’s still time,” says Arvista, rallying herself with the ease of someone who’s talked panicked students down before, many times. Caleb allows himself a quick glance back at Beau, who gives him a discreet thumbs-up. “I’m very sorry for your loss, and even moreso that I can’t let you in—”

“But I _need_ to—” Caleb starts.

“Oh, come on, just let the man get inside,” Beau wheedles. “With his cat.”

Frumpkin mewls pitifully.

“I wish I could, I really do,” says Arvista, standing firm. “But there are requirements for entrance into Lady Margaret’s Hall that _must_ be met. Some of the knowledge inside is too dangerous for even the slightest chance that it could fall into the wrong hands.” She spreads her hands out. “You understand this, I think, the both of you. But that said, you don’t need the papers from your professor, exactly—if you were to talk to, say, the Lawmaster, or the Captain of the Guard, or some higher-ranking monk from the Cobalt Soul’s branch here, or even some visiting luminaries from Rexxentrum or Zadash, of which there might be a few attending the festival? You could ask them to sign the forms for you.”

“Who’s the Lawmaster, currently?” Caleb asks. “Or the Captain? Or— _Scheiße_ , I don’t know who is coming to the festival, do you have any idea?”

“Not a clue, sorry,” says Arvista, with a shake of her head. “That kind of information is far above my pay grade, unfortunately.”

“There’s a branch of the Cobalt Soul here, too?” says Beau, brow creasing as she leans forward.

“Yeah, they just opened it,” says Arvista. “I think you and your harried friend here could have some luck there, since I can see you’re wearing the order’s colors.” She drums her fingers on the wood and says, “As for the Lawmaster, his name’s Seddith Torwyn, his office is in the center of town. He’s in the process of retiring shortly after this festival, though, so you might want to be quick about getting his signature. The Captain’s name is Gimbli Brandybuck, but he’s—well, he’s a piece of work.”

“How so?” says Beau.

Arvista hesitates. “Well, uh,” she says. “He can be very—abrasive, sometimes. Very rude. I would advise that if you come to talk to him, you try to, ah, ingratiate yourself.”

“Bribe him, you mean,” says Beau, flatly.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Arvista says.

“Meant it that way, though,” says Beau.

“Well, um—”

“My, uh, friend is too blunt, I am very sorry for her,” Caleb breaks in, nudging Beau’s side. “Where is Captain Brandybuck, usually?”

“If he’s not out with his forces, I believe he usually stays at his office in the Crownsguard’s barracks,” says Arvista, stroking her beard. “It’s also in the center of town. I can even give you a map of the town, if you want—I have a stack I keep under here, for people who are running on a very tight schedule.”

“Oh, great, what’s _this_ need?” Beau grumbles, and Caleb nudges her side again. “Ow! Stop _hitting_ me, dammit, your elbows are fucking sharp!”

He’ll honestly be impressed with himself if his elbows actually did any damage, Beau is much tougher than he is. Case in point: she nudges him right back, and he lets out a real pained hiss, because _ow_. “Don’t do that,” he says. “ _Ja_ , I would like a map. Will it cost us anything?”

“Not a thing, just let me look,” says Arvista, hopping off her stool and rummaging around behind her desk. After exactly twenty-seven seconds of this, she hops back up, triumphantly holding a large, rolled-up piece of parchment, as well as an envelope. “I got it! And the forms!” she says, and holds it out for Caleb to take. “I drew the map myself, you wouldn’t believe the number of people who come here expecting the public library instead.”

He plucks it from her grasp and unrolls it, feeling Beau lean against him as he takes in every detail of the intricate, carefully-drawn map. On it, the town is drawn into four quarters, neatly labeled, with a circle in the center that’s marked, helpfully, as _Town Center_ in Common. The first thing he notes are the locations of the two libraries: the public library, the one he and Molly had visited earlier in the day, is further away from the town’s center than Lady Margaret’s Hall is. The second is that the town center’s most important landmarks are all arranged close to each other in a semicircle, the Crownsguard’s barracks right next to the Lawmaster’s office, which is right next to the town’s meeting hall and court.

“You’ll know what the Lawmaster’s office looks like from a mile away,” Arvista adds. “It’s the tallest building there is, in town. Traditionally they take up residence there, in the same place where Lady Margaret herself was said to have labored for three days over defeating Xhorhas’ famed ghost of an assassin.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” says Caleb, as Beau tugs the map out of his hands. He tucks the envelope away into his pocket. “I—gods, Arvista, thank you for rendering this much aid, as restricted as it was. I do not have _words_ for my gratitude.”

“You’re welcome,” says Arvista, as Caleb puts a hand on Beau’s elbow and tugs her lightly back towards the stairs. She grumbles a little under her breath, but follows after him. “I wish you the best of luck on your endeavors,” Arvista calls after them.

“Thank you!” Caleb shouts back, then turns away and shivers a little, as the effect of the anti-magic wards finally dissipates. Just like that, he can cast again, and he takes Frumpkin off his neck and holds him close to his chest.

“We’re gonna need it,” Beau mutters, and squints at him as he murmurs something under his breath. An illusory flame flickers to life, dancing around the tips of his fingers like a mischievous spirit. Or a tiefling in red. “You okay there?”

“ _Ja_ , I am fine,” says Caleb, extinguishing the illusion. “Only unused to not being able to cast, that’s all.” It’s a good thing they’re not planning on trying to trick the wards, or bludgeon their way through it. He isn’t certain they’d make it through, and Molly is counting on them right now.

He gently deposits Frumpkin onto the ground, fishes around his pockets for a copper wire, and says, “Nott? We have finished up here, we know where to start. Where are you and Fjord?”

_Just around the corner near the puppet show! The one with the half-elf puppeteer. Where are you? I can grab Fjord and we can come meet you halfway! You can reply to this message._

“Beau and I are just outside the library,” says Caleb. “We’ve a map of the town as a whole now, and the names of both the current Lawmaster and the Crownsguard’s Captain here. Can you tell Fjord we may need his help in speaking with the Lawmaster?”

Nott doesn’t answer right away, but that’s fine. Most likely she’s talking to Fjord.

Beau says, “Pretty good con you just ran back there.”

“ _Danke_ , Beau,” says Caleb. “It’s very new, Nott and I are still working on a name for it.”

“You guys take suggestions?” she asks, resting her elbow on his shoulder. It takes some doing, because he’s much taller than she is, and her elbow ends up at an awkward angle, prodding his cheek. This may be her revenge for the nudging she got earlier, he’s not certain. “How’s Please Let Me Pass?”

Caleb shoves her elbow away with a huff. “Stop poking me, please,” he says. “And—that may work. I like the double meaning.”

“Thanks, I knew you would,” says Beau. Her eyes slide away from Caleb, fixing on a few Crownsguard passing by as discreetly as possible, with a ragged human pickpocket in chains. It’s not Nott, thankfully, Nott picked a dwarven disguise this go around, but Caleb still feels dread twisting his gut into knots. Especially when he sees them cut into an alleyway, the pickpocket trailing along after them.

He thinks, suddenly: had they done the same to Molly, in Rexxentrum, or wherever they’d stuffed him? Had Astrid thought to humiliate Lucien even further by dragging him through a street? Or had she done it under the cover of night, holding the chain herself? He has to admit, the last option seems more like something she’d do. She’d always liked doing things in the dark, it’s a wonder she’s only now picked up a couple of daggers, if what Jester’s saying about her echo in Molly’s head pans out.

“They didn’t do that in Rexxentrum, did they?” says Beau, quietly.

Caleb lets out a breath. “They had public executions in Rexxentrum,” he says. “To make an example and dissuade any traitorous activity. I’ve seen worse than a pickpocket being dragged down an alleyway.” He pauses. “Some of those executions were—not entirely real, though. Some of those to be executed displayed talents that were sorely needed.”

“So instead of dancing the hempen tango,” says Beau, “they ended up as puppets dancing to the Empire’s tune.”

Caleb nods, bending slightly down to pet Frumpkin and, perhaps, ground himself a little bit. “Yes,” he says. “We called it a mercy.”

“Nothing merciful about scooping someone’s personality out and stuffing something else in that’ll obey orders,” says Beau, as blunt as always. “That’s a real fucking shitty thing to do, no matter how fucked up the crime was.”

He knows that now. Even better now than he used to, in fact, now that Molly’s been one of them. It’s harder to call it mercy, now that he’s seen what it’s done to Molly, who’s done nothing to warrant it, who’d been overwhelming and loud and colorful and kind and _good_.

The memory bubbles up, unbidden: Molly’s face framed by moonlight, purple hair almost silver in the pale light, his lips hesitantly tugging upward in a real smile. He’d smiled so much easier before all this, before Caleb’s past dragged him into the shadows just out of the grave. Caleb wants—

Well, Caleb wants a lot of things, but right now he only wants to see Molly’s easy smiles again, wants to see them come as frequently as they did before.

He doesn’t think of Molly leaning against his touch, his cheek warm against Caleb’s calloused, scarred palm. Nor does he think of Molly in his arms, the two of them swaying and spinning on the street, how _close_ he’d come to kissing him, how loud his heartbeat had been in his ears. If it hadn’t been for Jester breaking in—

“Hey, Caleb, _hey,_ ” says Beau, snapping her fingers in front of his face. “You in there? You need me to take you out of the way for a minute?”

Caleb blinks, and shakes his head. “ _Nein_ , no, Beau, I am all right,” he says, putting a hand on her wrist and lowering it so it’s not in his sight. “I was just—thinking, that is all.” That’s all there is to it. “We should meet up with Nott and Fjord,” he says, quickly, before Beau can ask him what he’s thinking about. She’s an observant person, there’s no way she’s not at least piecing the clues together. “Hopefully they’ve not gotten into too much trouble without us.”

“ _Stop jinxing it_ ,” says Beau, sufficiently distracted, and thus they walk away from the library.

\--

So here’s the thing that no one’s told Molly about the small things, like baths, beds, and the warmth of a good friend next to him: if he goes for long enough without any of it, having it again feels vaguely similar to heavenly bliss. Or what he imagines heavenly bliss might feel like, anyway. It isn’t like he has any memory of the afterlife.

Anyway, the point is this: the first time Molly sinks into a heated pool in the span of seven months, he surprises both himself and Yasha, as well as probably quite a few other people in the nearby pools, by letting out a deeply, _deeply_ relieved moan. He can’t really help it, it’s been a long time, he’d forgotten how _good_ it felt to just sink into warm waters and let the stress and pain slough off his shoulders.

“Yeah, it’s been a long while,” says Yasha, scooting closer. They’re both completely naked, Molly having paid extra for a couple of small repairs to his dress, and she’s just warm and inviting despite the giant sword still at her side in arm’s reach and he’s a little bit giddy. Bath-giddy? Is that a thing? It’s a thing now. He curls into her side and, with some shifting around, leans his head on her shoulder.

After a moment, he feels her scratching idly at the back of his head. Then she stops.

“Oh,” she says, quietly, and oh, right, those scars on his back haven’t quite healed over, have they. That’s what happens when there’s no cleric willing or _allowed_ to heal you beyond the bare minimum required to keep you going around. “Oh, _Molly_.”

He looks up at her, shakes his head. He reaches up a hand to rest on the back of her neck, and bumps his forehead against hers. It’s fine. He’s fine. Angry that he gained all these scars and can only remember how for some of them, angry about _how_ for what he remembers, fine, but—here and now, they don’t really matter. What matters is that he is here, and alive. The rest they’ll deal with later.

He wishes he could tell her all that, but the geas still tightens around his throat. All he can do is scratch the back of her neck, lightly, and hope she gets it.

She seems to, by how she relaxes. “Do you want me to give you a haircut?” she asks, and he goes _still_.

The last time someone had given him a haircut—he actually can’t remember. He just knows one day it kept getting into his face and interfering with work and the next a good chunk of it had been hacked off with a knife, inexpertly. He doesn’t think he did it to himself. The idea wouldn’t make him freeze like this, if he did.

It’s ridiculous. It’s stupid. He knows Yasha. She wouldn’t hurt him, she’s cut his hair before, she’s good at maneuvering a dagger or even a sword around to give someone a passable shave and a decent haircut. Hell, he’d love to have a haircut, he’s been thinking of having one for a while. But now that he’s been asked, the idea of someone wielding a sharp object near the back of his neck where he _can’t see_ —

He gives a tiny little shake of his head.

Yasha frowns, and he sees a little flicker of righteous fury in her mismatched eyes. It’s hard to miss, from this close up. But she goes carefully blank after a moment, and then sighs. “Okay,” she says.

Molly lets out a relieved breath, and lets his hands slip down to hug her close. She hugs back after a moment, and presses a little kiss to the top of his head, between his horns.

“Is it weird,” she says, quietly, “that as fucked up as this all is, I’d still take this over you being dead?”

He shakes his head, still holding on to her. It might be weird, but he’s just glad to be alive too, even if his situation is incredibly fucked up. Even moreso to be _himself_ again.

“I’m just really sorry it took so long.”

So is he, but that doesn’t matter anymore, really. He pats her shoulder in a reassuring manner and nuzzles in close against her collarbone. After a moment, he feels her let out a soft sigh against his hair, and pat his shoulder too.

“If that woman lays a hand on you again,” Yasha says, quietly, after a long silence, “I will kill her.” It’s not a promise, or a threat, or even Yasha’s idea of comfort—just a fact, plainly stated. He’s got a feeling she’s not the only one in the Mighty Nein who wants Astrid dead by her hand, though. He isn’t going to lie, it—would be nice not to have to worry about Astrid’s shadow hanging over his head, like a very sharp sword just waiting to fall. What had Gustav called that story? Sword of—well, some fancy asshole.

He holds Yasha tighter, anyway, fear shaking him to his core—the fear of losing her, losing any of his friends when he’s only just gotten _back_. He would do anything to keep them safe and alive and nowhere near Astrid and Ikithon and the things they could do to someone the Empire finds useful. Someone, he knows, like Yasha.

His tail curls around her ankle, aching less now that he’s in the midst of a warm pool. His grip on her grows tight, fingers digging into skin. Her breath tickles against his hair. “I can handle myself against her,” she says. “Sword, remember?” And she nods to the giant sword next to her.

He nods, and, reluctantly, lets go of her, scooting back through the water and leaning against the walls of the pool.

There are—footsteps, in the distance. Rapid ones. Molly cocks his head to the side before he turns to look, and he sees a flash of blue launching into the air.

Then water practically explodes out of the pool as Jester makes impact with a triumphant scream. Someone in a nearby pool yelps loudly, as some of the water spills over onto them. Molly holds up ten fingers as Jester, completely naked, emerges from the significantly-reduced pool with a grin.

“ _Yes,_ ” Jester says, pumping her fist into the air.

Yasha, significantly wetter than before, chuckles to herself. Her sword is still in the water beside her, also much wetter now. “It was very impressive,” she says.

“You guys should try it too, just give it a couple of minutes,” says Jester, scooting over to sit next to Molly as the pool starts to refill. “It’s really great, they refill all by themselves here.”

Molly leans against her, and basks in her warmth. Her tail curls around his ankle, a comforting weight coiled around him, anchoring him, and she says, “Remember the last time we all had a bath together?”

“Yeah, Zadash,” Molly says, the geas finally loosening its hold on his throat. Gods, that bath feels like a lifetime ago. With a start he realizes that, fuck, it _was_ a lifetime ago for him, because weeks after that bath, he’d died and come back and been dragged into hell right afterwards. “I can’t say this is better than that bath was, but it’s probably the best bath I’ve had in a very long time.”

Jester’s smile fades slightly, and her hand creeps into his, squeezes lightly. He breathes out, and she presses closer into his side. “What was the best bath you ever had before this?” she asks.

He glances at Yasha, grins, and says, “Remember when you were just starting out with the circus, and I brought you to that bathhouse with the citrus soaps? And you almost ate one?”

“I thought we agreed,” says Yasha, calmly, “we’d _never bring that up again_.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” says Jester, “ _really_?”

“Yasha,” Molly says, in grave, solemn tones, like he’s telling the whole truth, “right now I’ve this thing in my head that is making me tell people the truth when they ask for it. I can’t be held responsible for what comes out of my mouth. And also, Jester: yes, _really_ , she thought they were the snacks that I asked for when we first came into the bathhouse.”

It’s a lie, he doesn’t need to tell people the truth now. Yasha knows that, and he sees her roll her eyes up towards the ceiling with a sigh.

“I didn’t even know there was such a thing as scented soap before,” she huffs now, folding her arms across her chest and glaring him down. Or at least trying to. Molly knows what Yasha’s glare looks like, and there’s too much fondness in her eyes for him to really be worried, so he chuckles and bumps his ankle against hers. He hadn’t put much effort into that lie, anyway. “And it smelled very—citrus-y.”

“Oh my _god_ ,” says Jester, in revelatory tones. “Oh, wait, ah—what else?”

“I tackled her,” says Molly, waving a hand. “It felt like hitting my head against a brick wall, but I managed to get the soap away from her.”

“You could’ve just _told me_ instead of risking the concussion,” Yasha says. “And how is that the best bath you’ve ever had?”

“Yeah, how?” says Jester, more to enable him to answer than anything else.

“We barely _talked_ before then,” says Molly. “That was the first time I felt like you liked me. Up until then you were just the new girl—interesting enough, and someone I did want to talk to, but I didn’t know if you were going to stick around long enough to get attached to.” He pauses, then adds, “I did what I had to do.”

Yasha splashes him with water. It’s a shock: one moment she’s calm as anything, the next there’s a splash and Molly’s sputtering as he wipes the water from his face. The geas closes in then, so he only huffs out a breath before he responds by splashing her back.

“Splash fight!” Jester cheers, and brings her arms down hard to send water crashing right into Molly’s face. Yasha’s face, too, judging from how she sputters and wipes the water from off her face. Molly snickers and lashes his tail through the water, sending more water into her face. Then _Jester’s_ tail whips around, and a spray of water catches Molly in the eyes. He yelps, a curse bubbling up in his throat before the geas strangles it.

He splashes water in Jester’s direction, and she gasps as though betrayed. Then she splashes more water at him, and he can’t hold his laughter back even when the water gets into his mouth. He spits and sputters, and gives her his best glare before he sinks down underneath the pool’s surface and pulls her down.

Jester, it turns out, kicks like a mule. She’s first to break the surface, too, and Molly follows after her with a huff, rubbing at where her foot connected with his elbow.

“Sorry!” she says. At least she’s sincere about it, and whatever annoyance Molly felt towards her melts away when she wades closer to check on his elbow. “Are you okay?” she asks.

“I’m all right,” he confirms. She hadn’t kicked him that hard, the worst he’ll be getting out of this is a bruise that won’t stand out very much anyway. “I’ve had far worse than a little kick. Where did you learn to kick like that, anyway?”

“I had a dance tutor and she kicked _super_ high, and I wanted to try it,” says Jester, turning his elbow this way and that, her nose scrunched up. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Jester, I promise, the moment I don’t feel okay, I will let you know somehow,” says Molly, patting her shoulder. “But right now I’m okay, so why don’t you worry about something else?” And he flicks his tail up, sending water splashing up Jester’s back and making her jolt and swear at him in Infernal.

Yasha huffs out a laugh, and says, “You should take your own advice,” and brings one heavily-muscled arm down. Molly sputters as water splashes into his face again, and wades closer to Yasha so she’s not so safe, sitting pretty on the side of the pool where neither he or Jester can get her.

Yasha goes willingly enough, only putting up a token effort of resistance, and dives under the water after a moment before coming up to splash Jester, a serene smile on her face the whole time even as Jester squeals.

Gods, they’re all assholes. Gods, has Molly _missed_ them so much, even as fucked up as he had been in all those months. Somewhere in the back of his head he’d had this sense of missing something, someone important, somewhere there had been a yawning emptiness inside his heart with the names of the Nein scratched on.

The whole of him had been a yawning emptiness, then, but that little bit had felt—different, like a tooth freshly-pulled that he couldn’t quite stop poking at, because he’d gotten so used to having it around. The rest of it had just felt like someone had hollowed him out and stuffed something else in, something that didn’t quite _fit_ right.

Molly doesn’t know if he still fits, now, but then it’s too early for him to call.

But Jester grins and splashes him, and he laughs and flicks his tail around to send water flying into her and Yasha’s faces, and he feels more settled now in his own skin than before.

Things will turn out good, he thinks. At the very least, they’ll turn out okay. He just needs to stay close to these people, and see this through.

Easy enough to do, right now.


	20. help me see the sun again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Kodaline’s “Human Again”.

It’s after the splash fight, when the three of them are just leaning against each other in the water and giggling, that Jester catches sight of one of Molly’s many, many scars.

It’s on the inside of his upper arm, with the snake and the flowers and everything. He stretches his arms up over his head, and she sees the near-surgical scars concentrated on one spot on his arm. Some look a little jagged, the rest much cleaner and more precise. Under ordinary circumstances she’d think it’s just Molly and his glowy sword thing, but Molly doesn’t tend to go for his tattoos, and the scars look like they’d been deep enough to _really_ hurt.

There’d been—Jester’s mom had once mentioned to her that one of her clients _liked_ bloodletting, liked it when someone opened a little slit in his upper arm just enough to see the blood well. Which was and still is a little weird to Jester, but her mother had said, well, as long as everyone involved were consenting adults who knew the risks and had healing potions and a friend who could cast Cure Wounds it was totally fine.

It isn’t fine now. This Astrid _hurt_ Molly, and badly, and for what? A grudge against someone who died two years ago, whose body Molly just happens to have now. Jester tastes the bile on her tongue and swallows it back.

“Can I see your arm?” she blurts instead, and Molly looks at her, then at Yasha, who’s—also caught sight of the scars there, it seems. Jester meets her gaze, and sees her own horror and anger reflected in Yasha’s mismatched eyes. So at least the two of them have some common ground, there.

“Ohhhhh-kay,” says Molly, and he holds his tattooed arm out for Jester to inspect. “You’re not still worried about that kick you gave me?”

Jester shakes her head. “No, I know you think that’s not a super big deal, so I’m not gonna make it a super big deal,” she says. She turns his arm over, and there’s the criss-crossing scars on his upper arm. “Oh,” she says.

Molly frowns at her, understanding dawning on his face. He pulls his arm away and sinks deeper into the water, curling up into a quiet little purple ball. Jester scoots closer, placing her hand on his back. So does Yasha, her big hand gently landing on Molly’s shoulder.

“I could heal it up,” Jester says, rubbing his back.

He shakes his head, looking down at the water. She hears his breath hiss out between his teeth.

“This isn’t because of some stupid shit about how you don’t deserve it, is it?” Jester asks. A lot of the time that’s usually what happens, when someone doesn’t want healing, and she’s used to getting that from Yasha, sometimes Caleb if there’s other people who look really injured. She really hopes Molly’s not going to become a part of that little list.

“Oh, definitely not,” says Molly, looking up to meet her eyes. His voice is sincere enough that she relaxes a little, but keeps rubbing his back, thumb pressing light circles into his shoulder. “It’s just that this is _old_. Whatever healing you can do is minimal at best, and you’ve already done quite a bit of healing lately. You should save it up for when someone needs it.”

“But _you_ need it,” Jester points out. “Right, Yasha?”

“Does it hurt?” says Yasha, to Molly, nodding to his scars. “When you move your arm?”

He shakes his head again, taps the scars with his finger, and shrugs.

Yasha lets out a breath, then looks at Jester and shakes her head, as well. “He does have a point,” she says. “We don’t know what might happen. We could end up fighting someone.”

“Who would we even _fight_ in a bathhouse?” Jester huffs, but she lets go of the subject anyway without calling on her divine magic. Molly’s arms drop back to his side as he uncurls, and he looks at the scars marring his tattoos with a little frown.

“Given our luck, I wouldn’t be surprised if we needed to fight a sea serpent,” Molly says. Then he pauses, and Jester whistles innocently even as Molly squints at her, then at Yasha. “Have you?” he asks.

“It was a water elemental,” Yasha offers, “and it was in Nicodranas.”

“It was a _real genie_ ,” says Jester. “And this shitty dude stalking my mom was controlling him with a magic bracelet! So we cut the guy’s hand off and freed the genie, and Yasha saved Caduceus’ life.”

“He was really very nice and I didn’t want them to lose anyone else,” Yasha says.

Molly’s face is doing this—this thing, again, where he’s smiling at them but there’s something sad behind it. His tail droops visibly, dropping fully into the water and wrapping around his ankle, like he’s a little bit heartbroken but doing his best to hide it. He looks down and tucks his hair behind his ear, then pats Jester’s shoulder and gives her a thumbs-up.

“He’s very proud,” Yasha translates.

“We were all very proud of ourselves too,” says Jester. “I mean we also went unconscious a lot but we were very proud afterwards. We did really good.” She glances at Yasha and says, “How do you keep _doing_ that, can you guys _read each other’s minds_?”

“Oh, no,” says Yasha. “I spent time with him sometimes when he went nonverbal. Um. Back in the circus.” She tugs Molly’s arm gently, and he goes, leaning against her this time and letting out a soft little sigh.

Molly’s tail uncurls. It’s still droopy and sad, though, not quite as active as before. Jester lets her tail down into the water, and taps the tip of it against the tip of Molly’s tail.

He startles.

She remembers: he didn’t grow up with other tieflings, or if he did he doesn’t remember. There’s stuff he knows, she felt him bump his horns against hers and knew what he meant, but there’s the little stuff, the everyday stuff she and her Mom used to do. Tapping tails is—from what she recalls of what her mom would do, she’d tap Jester’s tail with her own when she just wanted her little sapphire to braid her hair, or to show her a new drawing. She’d do it, too, if she noticed Jester was sad, and she was and is very good at noticing things like that, and she’d sit and she’d listen and she’d hug Jester and tell her she loved her very, very much.

She scoots closer to Molly now, since he’s waded away from her and closer to Yasha. He’s shut his eyes and is just breathing now, steady as anything. “I’m very good at healing people,” she says, getting a confused nod out of him. “And I am a _super_ good listener. If you have any problems I’m right here, okay, Molly? _Any_ problems. Did you get it?”

“You’re sitting next to me, of course I’ve gotten it,” says Molly, lightly teasing. His tail taps back, tentatively, and then wraps around hers, loosely. “I’ll keep it in mind for after this, most of my problems right now have something to do with this thing in my head.” He taps his temple for emphasis. “And you’re fixing that already, which, thank you, you’re a star.”

Jester preens. “I’m _the best_ cleric,” she says, happily.

It’s then that Mel’s assistant from before, the kid who could barely lift a bucket of water, scurries on past them. Jester’s about to call out to him when Yasha sticks her arm out and shakes her head. Then Jester glances at Molly, who’s slid his tail out and away from Jester’s and slipped back into the water. There’s a look on his face that—that isn’t _quite_ Molly, she realizes, but it’s not the snarling, half-feral tiefling either.

It’s a little like watching Nott sneaking around. No, not just that.

It’s a little like watching Caleb sliding from her friend, dirty and awkward with dry humor and a cat he likes to lend her sometimes, into something else, something more focused on the job in front of him. It’s a little like watching Yasha go blank, before she starts swinging her sword.

It’s strange because it’s Molly, and she’s never seen him do that: slide from one mode of himself to another. Maybe because before he didn’t have any other modes other than, well, _himself_ , he’d just get quieter or louder depending on the situation. Now, though—

Caleb had said that the only reason why Molly hadn’t managed to take care of them like he’d been told to was because they’d said his _name_. She wonders now if they would have known anything was happening, if they didn’t know him when they saw him.

She sinks deeper into the water, shaking off that horrifying thought, and follows Molly to the edge of the pool, where he’s just—poking his head up over the water, red eyes watching the boy very carefully. Yasha follows after them, but casually leans back against the edge of the pool instead, sinking into the water and tilting her head back like she’s trying to hear too. Her eyes slide shut.

The boy—did he ever say his name, Jester doesn’t remember, she just knows he’s Mel’s assistant—stops at one of the nearby pools, with only one occupant. It’s a little hard to tell what the occupant looks like, beyond the fact that he’s got gray-green skin, pointed ears, and nasty scars, but Jester leans close and tilts her head towards Mel’s assistant and this very mysterious person.

It takes a moment, but eventually she picks something up: “—see you now, sir,” the boy’s saying.

“Took him long enough,” the mysterious occupant grumbles, his voice a deep grumble like he’s been chewing rocks. It sounds a little like Fjord’s voice, only not half as friendly or charming. “Been waitin’ here _ages_. Y’know there’s a coupla dipshits there, actin’ like kids and splashin’ each other? Splashed _me_ while I was waitin’ up.”

Yasha cracks an eye open and mouths, _He’s very rude._

“Super rude,” Jester whispers. “He’s no Oskar.”

Molly snickers, a little.

“Um,” says the boy. “Well, uh, they did win.”

“Fuckin’ tourists,” the guy huffs. Yeah, definitely a Lynbroke native, Jester’s been here long enough to figure out that they have, in general, two attitudes to new people: business opportunities, and _fucking tourists_. So sort of the same attitude, but different ways of looking at it. “Tell Rojen to wait up, yeah? Gotta put clothes on first.”

Rojen— _Rattlesnake_ , Jester realizes quickly. Holy shit, he’s _here_.

“But, um, Mr. Ghavnos, sir,” starts the kid, rubbing nervously at his forearm, “he says it’s urgent.”

“God fuckin’ dammit,” Ghavnos mutters. He gets to his feet, and Jester takes note of his naked body, a little vindictively pleased that he’s not as well-built as Fjord is. There’s a lot of scars all over his torso, the kind you’d get if someone stabbed you with a knife a lot, but they’re not like Molly’s scars. Most of Molly’s scars, anyway, and Jester glances at Molly, who’s gone very, very quiet and still. Like a hawk watching its prey. Not even his tail’s moving, it’s coiled around his thigh now. “All right, all right, I’m gettin’ there. Lemme just get clothes.”

Jester quickly turns around and rests against the side of the pool, whistling innocently as Ghavnos passes by. Molly sinks underneath the surface and moves closer to Yasha until he’s hidden from the guy’s sight.

“ _Tourists_ ,” Ghavnos says, loudly, glaring at Jester and Yasha. He’s a very large half-orc, with beady eyes and scarred knuckles, like he gets into fights a lot. One tusk is badly chipped, the other just plain missing. He scowls down at them, like they’re totally the bigger dicks here and not him, the guy who just up and called them tourists while they were _relaxing_.

Yasha cracks an eye open. “Hello,” she says, and yawns, stretches her arms out, then very casually flexes her biceps.

Ghavnos steps back and walks hurriedly away, the boy following behind him.

Molly breaks the surface then, sputtering and wiping his face. He glares at the guy’s retreating back, crosses his arms, and ineffectually splashes some water in his direction.

“I know, he’s a dick,” says Jester, consolingly, because she’s pretty sure he’s going to have something to say about her next sentence: “Also, we should follow him, he’s going to go meet Rattlesnake and we might be able to eavesdrop on what they’re gonna say. What do you think, Molly?”

“ _What_ ,” says Molly. “That is a _bad plan_. Yasha, it’s a bad plan, right?”

“I mean,” says Yasha, slowly, “it’s an opportunity. And we _really_ need that diamond dust.”

Molly stares at her, jaw slack. Then he shakes his head and huffs out a frustrated breath, tail lashing agitatedly around in the water. He doesn’t like that idea, Jester knows that—he doesn’t even like their big Greater Restoration plan, but she hasn’t heard any better plans out of him even when he’d been asked.

She really, _really_ wishes they had better plans than that. But if it means Molly won’t have to be scared of himself anymore, if it means he’ll be okay, then Jester’ll take the risk of going nuts.

Molly sighs, and waves a hand at where Ghavnos went, impatient now. Jester points to herself and then Yasha, then Molly himself, and says, “Let’s go put our clothes on and _stalk this asshole_!”

“Or we could just ask the kid,” says Yasha, as Jester clambers out of the pool.

“Or we could do that,” Jester amends. “Molly, what do you think?”

“We’re good with kids,” says Molly, optimistically. Then he pauses and amends, “We’re good with kids if we don’t keep them around for very long, but I doubt we’re planning to do that with this one.”

“We only kept Kiri a few days,” huffs Jester, and she gets out of the water first. “Now come on!”

\--

“Master Torwyn is booked up with meetings and trials for the day,” says the bored-looking human secretary, in the slightly too cramped lobby of the Lawmaster’s offices and court, “but if you want, I can find the forms for access to the library and have him sign them at the soonest opportunity.”

Fjord lets out a long, slow breath. They really, honestly should’ve expected this. Of course the guy’s booked up. He’s retiring after all this, he’s putting his affairs into order, cleaning ship so the next Lawmaster can step into the office with no worries. That’s going to take up pretty much all of his time, from now until he officially steps down.

Still, Fjord’s a little annoyed. He’d _hoped_ they could just get this done as soon as possible, had maybe even dreamed—but hell, here they are, and the guy’s not coming down. “When will this soonest opportunity be?” he asks, in a more highborn accent, suiting the rich clothes, the uncalloused hands, the pale skin and slicked-back hair of the human noble he’s pretending to be. “My friend and I _must_ finish this project in a short time.”

“We are not friends,” Caleb mutters, prickly, stroking Frumpkin. Fjord rolls his eyes heavenward. “The sooner we get this done the sooner you can stop pretending.”

“Well, sorry,” says the secretary, buffing her nails on the shoulder of her dress, “but the Lawmaster’s not seeing anyone who isn’t scheduled for today. You can expect a response by—two days from now?”

“ _Two_?” says Caleb, weakly.

“Is there any way you can speed up the process?” Fjord asks.

“That’s the fastest I can get you boys,” says the secretary, still buffing her nails like she’d rather be anywhere else but here. Ordinarily, he’d sympathize. Right now, though, he’s just picturing the hell it’s going to be to bribe a Crownsguard _captain_ , especially one who’s already in a crime lord’s pocket.

Hopefully they won’t have to bribe the man for his signature. It can’t be so hard to get.

“Two days is far too long a time,” says Caleb, as Frumpkin gives a sad and pitiful little meow. “If we cannot wait on the Lawmaster to get these forms signed,” and he waves the envelope from the library around, “then where must we go?”

“Crownsguard barracks is just next door thataway,” says the secretary, jerking her thumb towards the right. “Now get out of here if you’re only here for those forms.”

Fjord skedaddles, with Caleb trailing behind him, and they step out of the building into what Fjord has come to think of as the center of the town and now its festival: a large ring of stones, uneven and worn smooth by time, as if once they were the foundations of a great tower. There’s a statue in the center, of a woman with her hair in odd curls, dressed like a magical warrior from a fairytale.

Right now the statue is surrounded by some of the most extravagant stalls of the festival, and decorated with flowers and charms that make the statue stand out all the more. The base is covered in graffiti, to the point where Fjord can hardly see a speck of grey under all the colorful ink and chalk and—lipstick marks?

Beau sits at the base of the statue, her eyes shut as if she’s meditating. Nott sits next to her, hood up and her porcelain mask back in place, large yellow eyes surveying the crowds that shift and move around the statue. Her eyes catch on the two of them, and Fjord gives her a single shake of his head before he and Caleb duck behind cover.

Then he drops the disguise, and the two of them step out again, walking up to Beau and Nott.

Beau cracks an eye open and says, “No luck?”

“The Lawmaster’s booked up,” says Fjord. “Soonest we can get these forms back all signed is in two days. Think we have that much time?”

“Nope,” says Beau. “We got way too much shit to do in those two days.”

“There is the Captain of the Crownsguard stationed here,” Caleb says, now putting his cat up onto his shoulders. “Hopefully he will settle for a very paltry bribe.” He huffs out a dark chuckle and says, “Ideally he will not have to be bribed at all, but beggars and half-desperate students of the arcane arts working on their final projects can’t be choosers.”

“We can pool our funds if we have to,” Nott pipes up, her voice low enough in volume that Fjord has to scoot closer to hear her better. “I’ve got a _lot_ of gold that I can spare, I don’t do a lot of shopping for myself.”

“Yeah, I’d rather we didn’t have to,” says Beau, “but honestly, I’m betting we will. Guy’s a crime lord’s lackey, he’s gonna be real expensive.”

“Great,” Fjord mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. This is turning out about as productive as fishing for trout in the midst of the sea. “I’ll try to talk him down to a manageable price—far as he knows, it’s just a few things to sign. Doesn’t need to be that pricey.”

“I can push him to be more amiable towards us, if there’s a need for it,” Caleb says, scratching the top of Frumpkin’s head. The familiar gives a contented meow and licks Caleb’s cheek. Weird, Fjord didn’t know familiars could act like that. “But it has a time limit and he _will_ know afterwards, so we should save it as the very last resort.”

“And if shit goes wrong?” Nott prompts.

“ _Uno_ ,” Fjord says. “Same goes for you two, if you see anything weird.”

An armored bear lumbers past them, wearing a damned hat and looking very, very pleased with itself. Beau watches it go, then says, dryly, “Weirder than that?”

“...yeah,” says Fjord, staring after the bear and shaking his head. Who brings a bear to a festival? _Why_ bring a bear to a festival? “If we’re not out in an hour, or we don’t check in, come get us. But _be discreet_.”

“I am the _soul_ of discretion,” Nott says, peering up at Fjord from behind her mask. He decides not to point out that she looks very creepy and that if someone were to take a closer look at her, they would immediately realize that her painted lips don’t move when she talks.

“Yeah, we won’t make a scene,” Beau drawls, and yeah, Fjord trusts her to be more discreet than Nott, at least. “Go, we’ll keep an eye out.”

So Fjord goes, melting into the crowd with Caleb on his heels, and with a whisper he reassumes the nobleman’s appearance again: pale skin, slicked-back dark hair, clothes finer than anything Fjord has ever touched before he met up with Jester all those months ago, before the circus that brought the Nein together. “Think he’ll be in his office?” Fjord mutters as they make it back out of the circle, this time headed towards the Crownsguard’s barracks.

“It is likely,” Caleb says, petting his cat. “If he is not, we can just ask if there is anyone else. We have not exhausted all our options yet.”

“Look at you being optimistic,” says Fjord, cheery as he pushes the doors to the barracks open. Then again, Caleb’s got his cat with him, so that’s probably a significant factor.

Almost immediately Fjord has to step aside as a group of Crownsguard hurry out, grumbling and complaining as they pass him and Caleb by. Nothing in particular catches Fjord’s ear as important, they’re mostly just complaining about missing shows they wanted to see, having to work double hours during the festival, the captain’s favorite lieutenant—huh.

Cronyism’s alive and well in this town’s Crownsguard, apparently. Fjord ducks into the barracks once the last of the guards have filed out, with Caleb and Frumpkin on his heels.

The entrance to the barracks is, unsurprisingly for a festival, somewhat crowded. There are people in chains all lined up, waiting to be processed and sent through into holding cells for the day. There are two Crownsguard stationed at each end of the line, and Fjord passes them by with only a quick glance to Caleb, who’s ducked his head and is petting his familiar a little more, now. No one glances their way more than once, thankfully, and Fjord walks up to the guard tapping out an absent beat on the worn surface of the welcome desk.

“Afternoon,” the guard drawls.

“ _Guten Nachmittag,_ ” says Caleb.

“I would not call it a _good_ afternoon,” says Fjord, slipping into the posh accent again, “so do not insult both my and this hardworking guard’s intelligences by pretending you aren’t as frustrated as I am.”

“I am being _polite_ like you asked me to be,” says Caleb, with a huff, before he turns to the guard. “I do not have time to be any more polite than that, so keep that in mind when answering me: where is your captain?”

“Uh,” says the guard, eyes darting between the both of them, momentarily thrown off. “Well, um—”

“ _Well, um,_ ” Fjord mimics, pitching his voice higher, “we’re in a hurry. This _idiot_ here lost our papers so we could go to his _precious library_ —”

“You were the one who said that route was safe!” Caleb all but explodes as he rounds on him, and Frumpkin hisses at Fjord to seal the deal. Fjord very discreetly gives Caleb a thumbs-up, out of sight of the guard. “And now look where we are! If it hadn’t been for you and _your_ impatience and stupidity we would be in the library right now—”

“Oh, so _now_ it’s my fault that you were so scatterbrained you didn’t see the bandits coming, is it?” Fjord snaps.

“You were supposed to be on watch!” Caleb snarls back.

“No, that was _you_ —”

“Hey, hey, _hey_ ,” snaps the guard, vaulting over the desk to get in between them, and deftly ducking Frumpkin’s paw batting at his cheek. “Stop it! What do you both want with the captain?”

“We need him to sign these forms so we can get into Lady Margaret’s Hall,” says Caleb, pulling the envelope back out of his coat and waving it in front of the poor guard’s face. Fjord feels a little bit sorry for the poor man, he didn’t exactly sign up for an explosion today, but they do need to get that signature as soon as possible. “And we need it as soon as possible because _some people_ insisted on taking the _scenic route_ to get here.”

“I said it was the safest route!” snaps Fjord. “I wasn’t just _sightseeing_! I was keeping an eye out for whoever might want our purses, which you failed at doing!”

“And who was it that said he’d string up the Alarm spell that night?” Caleb hisses back, glaring up at Fjord’s illusory form’s eyes.

“I really don’t think that’s important,” says the guard, curtly. “You two want the captain? He’s out right now, but I can get the lieutenant instead. _He’s_ out in the yard, though, so I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a little longer.” His eyes dart between Caleb and Fjord, a deep contempt barely hidden behind his polite veneer.

Fjord purses his lips, and says, “Very well. Get your lieutenant.”

“Follow me, sirs,” says the guard, and the two of them fall in behind the guard as he leads them past the line of chained-up small-time criminals. The doors open, and Fjord glances back to see a few guards tugging a bruised and battered pickpocket in through the doors, then looks back to Caleb.

“I recognize him,” Caleb murmurs. “Beau and I saw him earlier, only—he looked far better, then.”

Fjord’s gut churns. They’re going to have to be very careful about this, between Caleb being on the run from the Empire and all the little red flags this town’s Crownsguard keep sending up in his mind. God, this was much easier when Fjord didn’t know about Caleb’s past, because then it hadn’t kept resurfacing in the back of his mind. He tries not to look at any of the other guards scurrying past them, searching for any recognition of the man with him, as the guard leads them through a corridor and out into the yard.

The first thing that greets Fjord’s senses when he steps out into the yard is the sound of steel crashing against steel, all around him. Men and women shout and grunt, spin and slash and spit curses as they spar. Steel flashes in the sunlight as one man ends up eating dirt, and his sparring partner, with a laugh, ends up helping him up to his feet. Off to the side, a couple of guards are wailing on training dummies with dulled steel.

One man, in a breastplate that’s been polished to a shine, is walking through the crowd of guards. He stops near the recently-downed man, claps him on the back, then puts the sword back into his hand. He steps back as the man practices a few parries, then steps back in to lift his elbow just slightly, adjust the man’s feet so they’re further apart, straighten out his arm.

“Lieutenant Pilares!” the guard calls. The man doing the adjusting looks up, and gives his subordinate a nod before he walks over, and up close Fjord can see a scar over his temple, like someone had tried to cleave into his skull. “These good men are here to see you!”

“We just need some papers signed as soon as possible,” says Caleb, tired and deeply annoyed, as the lieutenant walks up. Belatedly, he adds, “Lieutenant.”

“Good afternoon,” Pilares brightly says, as the guard leaves them. Fjord can’t help but squint at him, because—how old is this kid? And he’s a _lieutenant_? He looks at Caleb, who seems just as surprised as he is. “I’m Lieutenant Goyong Pilares. How can I help you?”

“It’s as my—project partner says,” Fjord says, making sure to drip deep and utter contempt all over his voice for the words _project partner_. “We need some forms signed so we can access Lady Margaret’s Hall.”

“Is there a reason why you can’t just visit the public library?” says Pilares.

“It doesn’t have what we _need_ ,” says Caleb. “I am studying mental manipulation magics, and there is nothing in the community library on such things beyond fairytales and legends.” He scoffs, and says, “We need something more concrete than _stories_ , for this dissertation. Which is taking place in a _month_ , and we’ve only just started writing it.”

Pilares winces, and says, “Oh, that’s—yeah, that is a very tight schedule you’re on.”

“It’s his fault,” says Caleb, at about the same time Fjord says, “Yes, well, that would be _his_ fault.”

Pilares looks up at the sky, lets out a long, slow breath. “I think you both should step this way,” he says, gesturing to the doorway leading back to the inside of the barracks, before Fjord can start up another fake argument with Caleb about whose fault it was the nonexistent paper was started so late.

Fjord glances at Caleb, and leans in close, diligently avoiding going in too close to Frumpkin, to whisper, “Look disgusted—how high a rank do we need?”

“Captain-high,” Caleb whispers back.

“Damn,” Fjord mutters, straightening back up. He sniffs, and hopes to god that no one notices, because goddammit why’d Caleb have to make his familiar a _cat_?

Pilares looks back, frowning, as he guides them past other Crownsguard, turning right into a corridor of offices. Fjord smiles tightly at him, and flexes his fingers idly. They’ll be fine. They’ll be fine. If anything goes wrong Caleb will call Beau and Nott, and Fjord can summon the falchion and cut his way out of trouble. They are going to be fine, and Fjord will just keep telling himself that until he can believe it.

Doesn’t stop him from flexing his fingers, anyway, curling them around a nonexistent hilt. Doesn’t stop his brain from spinning out scenarios of how things could go horribly, terribly wrong. Iron Shepherds wrong. Shipwreck wrong. Molly dying wrong.

 _You’re going to be fine._ How many times does he need to tell himself that before he can believe that?

He breathes in, breathes out, as best as he can with a cat within ten feet of him. He can’t afford to let his worries get to him right now, not when there’s too much riding on him looking far more put together than he feels. He’s good at that, pretending he’s far better at this leadership thing than he truly feels he is.

He wonders if this was how Vandrin felt, when he was captain. Had Vandrin just been faking it, the whole time, pretending he knew what he was doing so no one else would panic? He wishes he could ask him, and—Fjord’s heart cracks in his chest. This isn’t anything like Molly, where he can just ask and, if Caleb’s around, he can get an answer. Vandrin is just gone. He knows that, deep in his bones.

If he’d only just asked, before that explosion, maybe he’d be better at leading this group of misfits.

“Here we are, my office,” says Pilares, snapping Fjord out of his thoughts. He pushes the door open to a sparsely-decorated office, with two trays full of paperwork on the side of the sole desk and three chairs around that desk, two in front and one behind it. A journal, much like Jester’s with less lewd drawings, sits in the center of the desk, open to a page that’s barely been written on. A quill rests in an inkwell near it, and there are faint dark smudges of ink on the wooden surface, where it must’ve dripped out onto the desk.

Pilares pulls out the chair behind the desk, and sits down. He straightens out his posture after a second, as if suddenly conscious of how a nobleman and a possibly-powerful wizard might think of his posture. Fjord sort of wants to laugh until he cries, because Caleb might be cleaner and less scruffier-looking, but at some point there’s just no hiding his sheer exhaustion with anything that looks even vaguely like social interaction. Also, again: Fjord’s just very good at pretending he knows what he’s doing.

“So,” says Pilares, “mental manipulation magics? That sounds—esoteric. Especially if you want the captain’s signature.”

“It is not quite as esoteric as you may think,” Caleb says.

“Oh yes it is,” Fjord says.

Frumpkin hisses at him, and Caleb straightens up his posture as well, as if Fjord’s offended him by implying his chosen topic’s a bullshit one. He’s half-sure he might really, truly _have_ incurred some offense against a tiny little part of Caleb that’s gone to the Academy and actually had to go through all this shit already. “It could be useful in your work,” says Caleb, contempt dripping off his voice as he glances sideways at Fjord, “despite what my _project partner_ thinks.”

Fjord glares at Caleb, and pretends he’s glaring down one of his shipmates who’s been caught trying to sneak a bottle of whiskey out of the cargo hold. “I fail to see how useful it could be,” he says, icily, knowing fully well how useful charming someone, magically or not, can be when it actually works.

“Only because you are _terrible_ at it,” huffs Caleb, and Fjord resists the urge to laugh, a little, because Caleb knows damn well that they’re _both_ very good at it. “As I’ve said, Lieutenant, it could prove useful, for if you are confronted with a recalcitrant suspect and you want to get a confession out of them.”

Pilares’ eyebrows draw together. “I—don’t know,” he says, a dilemma going on behind his eyes. “There are ways to get a confession out of someone without resorting to magic, and we are not all blessed with the sort of magic that you have.”

“ _Ja, ja_ , I know, I am well aware,” says Caleb, scooting forward till he’s on the edge of his seat, “this is all theoretical. But, if all goes well with the war—”

“Gods willing,” murmurs Pilares, glancing briefly at a portrait of two girls and one boy, sized to fit a small picture frame standing on his desk. One girl has dark hair and a bright grin, the other slightly pointed ears, long blonde hair and a grin just as bright as her friend’s. Then he looks away again, eyes focusing back on Caleb and Fjord.

“If all goes well, we may be able to spare some students to train in the field,” Caleb goes on, like Pilares never said anything. “And some of them, myself included, would quite like to assist our beloved Crownsguard in their inquiries. I’m sure you would appreciate that assistance, Lieutenant,” he adds, earnestly looking at the young lieutenant, “I know how hard it must be to serve our Empire in such crime-riddled circumstances. Just think of how much easier it would be to do so, if you could just—coax the truth out of your murderer, with magic. If you could even get them to lead you to where they left their victim. Gods, if you could even convince them never to do it again.”

Pilares opens his mouth, as if to argue.

“Wouldn’t your _captain_ ,” Caleb goes on, placing a special emphasis on the word, “want to ease the difficulties of the Crownsguard?”

Fjord holds back the urge to whistle lowly. Caleb’s grown, since they all first met back in Trostenwald.

Pilares chews on his bottom lip, almost absently, still doubtful. “That is something that the captain would want,” he says, at last, but his brow is furrowed like he’s not quite sure of something. “I—can’t say it’s something I, personally, think is feasible.”

“Not at the moment, with the war on,” says Caleb.

“Not at all,” Fjord says, and gets an elbow to the ribs for it. _Ow_ , Caleb’s elbow is sharp.

“But I can take this to the captain, when he gets back later,” says Pilares, every word heavy with the desire to not do that very thing.

“Will you tell him what I’ve said?” says Caleb.

Pilares’ breath hisses out between his teeth. “I will,” he says, politely, if somewhat reluctantly. “Captain Brandybuck may be interested in a more efficient use of our resources, I think he’ll like your research.”

“ _Gut_ ,” says Caleb, sliding the forms across the desk. Pilares takes them and puts them on top of one of the trays with a tired sigh.

“You’re very young for a lieutenant,” says Fjord, and Pilares stiffens a little, before he visibly forces himself to relax.

“I assure you, I have the qualifications,” Pilares says, tone clipped. “The captain put his trust in me when he raised me to this position, and I will not let him down.”

That sounds a little familiar. Vandrin had put his trust in Fjord, when he made him the quartermaster, but first he’d had to prove himself worthy of the position, responsible enough to take on the duties that came with it. Fjord’s not as certain Pilares’ captain is so careful, not if he’s raised someone this young so high, not if he’s taking bribes, and certainly not if he’d take the shortcut Caleb’s falsely proposing in exchange for his signature. He kind of pities Pilares, honestly.

“Then I suppose we’ll trust in your captain’s good judgment,” he says, out loud, haughtily.

Pilares’ answering smile is tight and drawn, not very genuine. Fjord should know. He’s gotten good at telling what false smiles look like, although this is a different brand from his friends. “I suppose so,” he says, posture straight. “If that is all, I do have other things to do. Every second I spend inside is a second I could’ve spent training the men outside to do their jobs.”

“Then we will not keep you for too long,” says Fjord, standing up and nodding to Caleb, who, somewhat reluctantly, stands up now too, scratching the top of Frumpkin’s head. “How long will it take until we can expect those forms back?”

“Give it until tomorrow,” says Pilares. “I’ll take it to the captain as soon as he comes back. I’m certain he’ll take an interest in your research.”

“I pray he does,” says Caleb, before they step out of the office, “it’s due in a month.”

Pilares’ sympathetic wince is the last thing Fjord sees before he shuts the door on him. “You saw the picture, right?” he says, as soon as the two of them are out of Pilares’ earshot. “One of those girls looked weirdly familiar, but I don’t know for sure—”

“The half-elf or the human?” says Caleb.

“The half-elf,” says Fjord, striding purposefully down the corridors and turning back out to the barracks’ entrance. “But I can’t place where I’ve seen her before. Can you?”

Caleb shakes his head, and says, “No. I’ve never seen either girl before. Why?”

Fjord sighs. “Yeah, that was a long shot anyway,” he says. “I just thought for a second, maybe we knew one or the other, could even use that. Both, even.”

“What are the chances of us having already run into those girls before?” says Caleb, scratching the top of Frumpkin’s head absently as they step out into the sunlight. Fjord sniffs, and very discreetly wipes at his nose. “Anyway, we have what we want. Or—we will have it tomorrow. That is a mystery we can let lie.”

“Yeah, I know, it’s just that I can’t shake it,” says Fjord, with a huff as they duck into a crowd of people gossiping about who might be coming for the festival. A whisper later, he steps back out without the disguise, whistling innocently with Caleb trailing behind him. “I’ve seen that girl before.”

“Then the next time we come visit for our forms we can ask him the names of his friends,” says Caleb, with a shrug, as they step back into the circle of stalls and back into Nott and Beau’s view. “But I advise bracing yourself for disappointment.”

“Y’know,” says Fjord, with a sigh, “considering our track record, I kind of already am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m starting my internship this week, so either expect shorter updates, updates on Sundays or Mondays instead of Wednesdays, or the same old update schedule. whichever works out.


	21. a ringing in my ear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Suzanne Vega's "Blood Makes Noise".

“They’re in one of the private rooms, um, towards the back—the one with the little golden snake doorknob,” says the kid, pocketing the five silver and seven gold that Molly presses into his hand and waving a hand in the direction of the back rooms. His eyes, however, are fixed on Yasha, and the very big sword strapped to her back.

Yasha catches the kid’s gaze, and gives him a slow nod of acknowledgment. The kid gulps, audibly, and steps slightly away.

Wise kid. Molly’s sure he’s going to go far one day, if he survives working for crime lords. He did just survive being tracked down by freshly-showered, just-dressed adventurers, so Molly feels good about the kid’s chances. “You guys sure about this? Mr. Rojen, ah, he doesn’t like it when other people interrupt his meetings.”

“We’re not gonna _interrupt_ anything, we’re just gonna wait until he’s done,” says Jester. “Anyway I bet it’ll just be really quick, we won’t even be there that long.”

“How do you know?” Yasha asks.

“He never lasted super long when he visited my mom,” says Jester, candidly, and Molly pats the kid on the shoulder and shoves him off in a direction away from them. “Okay, who wants to take point and who needs a blessing?”

“I can take point,” Molly says, tugging at the neckline of his dress and inspecting the lack of crossbow bolt hole. Wow, the people here work fast, he’ll have to amply reward them for that. And for the trouble he’s sure they’re going to cause. “But I can do just fine without the blessing.”

“Okay,” says Jester, then, “Yasha! Get over here, you’re the least sneaky of us.”

“I’m not that bad,” Yasha says, a little awkwardly. She steps towards Jester anyway, and Molly looks away to the direction the kid pointed in. Lucky for them the private rooms are behind a door that’s just around the corner, down a hall. Unluckily for them, the door’s guarded by a large and heavily-muscled goliath, who’s resting casually against the vine-covered wall, his large and somewhat ostentatious earring dangling from a scarred ear. He has a hand resting on the hilt of his sword, and every so often when he shifts onto his right foot he winces, then shifts back.

“It’s just in case you need to do any sneaking around,” Jester’s saying, but Molly tunes her out, watching the goliath more closely.

He knows this, with a cold certainty: he could take him down. He’d need Yasha’s sword, sure, but otherwise he’d just need one Blood Maledict to ensure he gets the drop on him, and he can kick the goliath’s right knee out and aggravate some old injury there to gain an advantage over him. If he yanks on the earring hard enough to tear it out of the earlobe, he can cause enough pain to distract the goliath at least temporarily, and a quick stab through the throat takes care of noise—

“Molly?”

Yasha’s voice. ( _Who—_ )

He shakes his head, fingers uncurling from where they’d tightened around a nonexistent hilt. What—He _can’t_ do that, they aren’t here to kill anyone. They’re just here to eavesdrop, they can find another way around if they need to.

“Molly, you went all weird back there, are you okay?” Jester asks, and Molly lets out a breath, suddenly very glad that he doesn’t have any weapons on him right now, and very scared too.

“I’m fine,” he says, giving a casual wave of his hand to alleviate the concern on both Jester’s and Yasha’s faces. “Only thinking, that’s all.” About possibly putting a sword through someone’s throat to shut them up before they could raise an alarm. What kind of person thinks of that first, before any other plan? What kind of person does that make Molly now?

He suppresses his instinctive shiver. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t. They have a problem in front of them and they’ll solve it without resorting to unnecessary bloodshed, hopefully.

“Anyway, just sit back out of the way and watch,” says Jester, shutting her eyes and murmuring a few words to the Traveler. An exact copy of Jester shimmers into existence beside her, grins brightly at Molly, and mutely waves at him. “Go distract the big ugly guy!” Jester orders her duplicate, and the illusion scampers off as Jester brings out a small pebble from her bag, and tosses it at the goliath.

“ _Ow!_ ” the goliath shrieks, straightening up to see Jester’s duplicate spin in place, wave smugly at him, and run away. “Little blue devil! Get back here!” He stomps off, and Molly peeks out from behind the corner to watch for a few more seconds.

“Rude,” Jester says, also peeking out. Molly pushes her back, glancing around to see if anyone else is coming, and leads the other two towards the door. “Okay, Nott has been teaching me lots of cool tricks lately, you wanna see me pick the lock?”

“It can’t hurt,” Molly says, quietly relieved for Nott’s apparent foresight, because he’s shit at lockpicking. He’s pretty sure. “Yasha, can you stand guard? Come get us in case our good friend the goliath comes back.”

“In a minute,” says Jester, already crouching down and slipping some lockpicks out of her pockets, “the double lasts for a whole minute.”

“Yeah, I can do that,” says Yasha, already resting against the doorway with her arms crossed. “Come back quick and be careful.”

 _I always am_ , Molly wants to say, but the geas strangles his voice before he can say anything. He flashes her a smile instead, and she gives a familiarly exasperated sigh, paired with the slightest of smiles.

The door creaks open. “I am the _best detective_ ,” Jester whispers, and Molly claps in recognition. “You go first, Molly.”

The corridor beyond the door is dimly lit, low-burning torches set into the walls giving off just enough light for a human to know where not to go. Molly steps into the shadowed corridor and glances around, his eyes adjusting to the slowly-growing lack of color. Snake doorknob, snake doorknob.

“Okay,” says Jester, slipping in behind him and looking down the corridor. “If anything goes wrong, you’re Feebleminded and I’ve been looking all over for you.”

Not a bad plan. Molly nods, and gives her his best vacant smile. She shivers, and he lets it drop.

He starts walking with Jester just behind him, silent as a ghost. His fingers curl around thin air, then uncurl, when they come to the door just around the corner of this first corridor. This door is far more ornately carved and decorated than the others, with spiraling designs etched onto smooth dark wood, the head of a roaring lion carved with loving detail. And on this door: a doorknob shaped like the head of a rattlesnake.

Well, he’ll give Rojen this, the man has a strong dedication to his aesthetic. Molly can respect that, even if he’s not sure about the rest of it.

—there’s voices drifting out beyond the door. Two of them, to be exact: one is the half-orc from earlier, Ghavnos, saying, “And, really, I’m just sayin’, we deserve a little slice of the pie too. Since we’re helpin’ you out with your campaign an’ all. Say, just give us maybe a couple hundred gold, somewhere ‘round the lines of 600 or so.” He coughs, and says, “After all, it’s our territory now too, since Thompson and his goons got killed. No reason why your good ol’ boys in shiny armor should be the only ones gettin’ a cut, when the Dogs of Hell are helpin’ out too.”

“I see,” says an unfamiliar, somewhat nasal voice. “I see. You have made a very, very good case, my dear boy.”

“Oh,” says Jester, making a face at Molly, her voice low enough not to be heard. “I forgot he sounded so dumb.”

Molly stifles a startled laugh with his hand. He’s grown so used to—to people who are nothing like Jester, to warmages who don’t expect anything less or more than total obedience and silence from him, to soldiers and assassins more broken than he is. He’d forgotten about Jester, and her easy chatter. He’d forgotten about all of them.

He’s missed his friends very much.

He puts a finger to his lips, and Jester nods quickly, pressing her ear to the crack in the doorway. Molly just leans in closer, paying close attention to the conversation.

“I did?” Ghavnos says, caught off his guard. Then he recovers with a cough, and says, false bravado back on, “I mean, ‘course I did. Good at talkin’, that’s me. S’all me.”

“Just give me a reason,” says Rojen, “why I should disregard my very profitable agreement with Captain Brandybuck for your gang’s advancement.”

“We’re an organization, and we’d be real useful to you,” says Ghavnos, an edge of desperation creeping into his tone. Somewhere in the back of Molly’s head, someone pleads with that same edge, _I could be useful, please, I could be a better servant to the Empire, just spare me, please_. He shivers, and looks at Jester, his tail drifting closer to brush against the tip of hers, seeking—something, he’s not sure what.

She blinks, and smiles softly, sadly. Taps back.

The pleading voice fades away.

“Oh, but you haven’t been,” says Rojen, calmly, so calmly that Molly’s pretty sure he’s restraining the urge to strangle the shit out of Ghavnos. “Tell me, how is Lestra doing?”

“...still operatin’,” Ghavnos says, after a long pause. “But she won’t be for long. She’s not been doin’ well since you muscled in, took her warehouse over.”

“That woman’s store,” says Rojen, voice like a whipcrack, “has somehow managed to hang on, by the skin of its _teeth_ , to a continued existence. This, despite all the reassurances you’ve given me, since I first hired you six months ago, that _your gang_ could drive her out of it without drawing, ah, unnecessary attention.”

“It’s that bitch of hers, that _fuckin’ freak_ Verrin,” Ghavnos spits. “She can do—somethin’, I dunno _what_ , but one minute she’s just some bitch, the next her eyes go all black and the veins stick out on her neck and she fuckin’ _slices someone’s arm off_ with their own sword! After fuckin’—you haven’t seen her, she fuckin’ _froze_ someone, cut herself open and one of the best Dogs fuckin’ froze in place—”

“Your best Dogs can’t take down _one_ woman’s business, because of her perpetually drunk employee?” says Rojen, barely managing to hold back his anger and disgust.

“It’s not just Verrin! Lestra’s got fuckin’ wards and spells and shit—”

“Do you not have anyone who can dispel magic?” says Rojen, his voice rising in volume with every word. “Not even a single person just magically-inclined enough? Not even some object that could grant you a way to do it? The Dogs have been a part of Lynbroke for this long that they have grown complacent, and have _no way_ to counteract magic, is _that_ what you are saying?”

“That’s not what I’m sayin’, Rattlesnake—” starts Ghavnos.

“And you come in here, you demand that I give you valuable time, you _demand_ that I break an agreement and give you more territory?” Rojen snarls. “I am a man of my word! A man of _honor_!”

“Oh, that’s real fuckin’ nice of you,” Ghavnos mutters. Molly has to strain to hear it, still just barely able to make out the words.

“What,” says Rojen, “did you say?”

There’s a silence, as if Ghavnos is debating whether to piss the man off even more. “You’re actin’ like you’re on the path of ‘em righteous and honorable men, but you’re not,” says Ghavnos, but his voice is shaky, as if he can’t quite believe that he’s pointing this out. As if he can’t quite believe who he’s pointing it out to. “You gotta know that. You can lie to the people all you like, you can lie to your minions and to us _lowlifes_ all you like, ‘s’fine. But you can’t tell yourself you’re a man of honor and shit when you’re holdin’ shit like this and cuttin’ deals and bribin’ all ‘em Crownsguard. Don’t fuckin’ lie to yourself, Rattlesnake.” The man lets out a loud sigh, and says, “Plus. We had a deal, too. So you’re not so good at keepin’ your word.”

Silence falls, stretches out for so long that Molly’s just about to call Jester back before—

“I keep my word,” says Rojen. “And I promised that if you overreached, you would pay dearly for it. Men?”

“What?” says Ghavnos. “No. _No._ No, no, no—”

“Take him out of here and—take care of him.”

Footsteps echo from inside the room. Ghavnos’ voice loses that false confidence once and for all, begging for mercy, for forgiveness, _please, I’ll do anything_. Chains rattle and click.

Some tiny broken part of Molly remembers the sound, the sequence. Footsteps, then defiant curses, then a solid boot to the side and the clap of chains on his wrists. He flinches now, the memory scrabbling its way to the forefront of his mind, and has to shove it and the rising panic away. There’ll be time for it later.

There’s the sound of flesh hitting flesh, and something cracking. A scream rips through the air, and Molly gets it now, gets why Rojen had this meeting in the back. Wouldn’t want to upset the tourists, after all, with the sound of someone getting beaten up. Shit, they can’t stay here.

He grabs hold of Jester’s wrist. Her eyes, wide and horrified, meet his. “We have to go,” she whispers.

He nods, and tugs her away. Heavy footsteps drift out from behind the door, and the two of them duck behind the corner. They can make a break for the entrance from here, he thinks, before Jester shifts her grip so she’s got a hold on him.

“Come on,” she says, urgently, and pulls him forward. He bites back the urge to swear as she does, because as she jerks him forward, his elbow hits one of the low-burning torches. The torch doesn’t budge, but Molly’s arm goes briefly numb with pain.

He must’ve made a sound, because he hears one of the men saying, “Take him out the back door, I’ll go see what that sound was.”

Oh, fuck. Oh, _fuck_.

He pulls Jester over to a door, tries it. It’s unlocked, thankfully, and he yanks it open and pushes her inside.

“Molly, _what the hell_?” Jester says.

“Stay here and keep quiet,” Molly says, “if anything goes wrong, I’ll knock, you’ll scream for Yasha.”

Jester huffs out an indignant breath, but nods. Molly shuts the door on her, just in time to see a bald human with beady little eyes and tattoos that are far less nice than his own stomping down the hall. Feeblemind, wasn’t it? It’s not hard to pull the vacant smile from somewhere, the half-lidded unknowing stare, the slow sway of his tail. It’s not hard, because somewhere in his memory—

_Don’t think about it, Tealeaf. Just get past this._

“What’re you doing here?” the man rumbles, staring down at him. Six foot three at most, he’s taller than Molly is, but close enough that Molly could take advantage and punch him in the throat, knee him in the stomach, pull his sword out of its scabbard while he’s doubled over and stab through the chest or cut his throat—no, no, he won’t.

He just smiles vacantly up at the man, tilts his head to the side. Blinks slowly, one, two, three. His heart pounds against his chest.

“Answer me,” the man snarls.

Molly makes a soft, confused noise. Harmless, that’s all he is right now. Just a broken and empty thing, a dumb animal to be led around, nothing to see here, move along, _nothing to see here_. Gods, he wishes he could speak, he could charm this bastard quick.

“I said,” the man says again, his voice a low growl as he grabs Molly by the lapels of his coat and pins him to the wall next to the door, lifting him up so his feet are off the ground, “ _what are you doing here?_ ”

Molly’s tail thwacks against the door as he kicks ineffectually. He could hurt the man, he knows, blind him and grab his sword and run him through, but that’s not something that someone under Feeblemind would even think to do. Instead he gives a pained whine, letting the fear show on his face, and counts up: _one, two, three, four_ —

“ _Yasha!_ ” Jester screams from inside the closet. The man’s eyes grow wide, and in the precious seconds that his grip on Molly loosens, Molly gives a final, panicked kick, and the man curses, letting go of him and letting him drop and stagger back.

Yasha stomps down the dimly-lit corridor and snarls, “Hey! Hey, get the _fuck_ away from my friend!”

Molly backs up, catching onto Yasha’s shawl and doing his best to look terrified. It isn’t hard, he really is scared, panic making his heart climb into his throat, but there’s something else underneath, something that hadn’t been there for all his acts before. He can’t look at it right now, doesn’t dare name what it is, but it lashes its tail inside him, coldly aware of just what he could do and what he _has_ done. Memory flickers in the back of his head like a dying candle, and he shakes his head, blinks it away.

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about Ghavnos, that poor bastard, and whatever they’re planning to do to him. Don’t think about where else he’s heard someone pleading for mercy, before, because if he does— _don’t think about it, Mollymauk, not right now._

“Your friend is trespassing,” the man says, his voice a low rumble.

“He doesn’t know any better,” says Yasha, level. She doesn’t quite tower over the man, she’s only an inch taller than he is, but her scowl is a magnificent thing to behold. It strikes fear into the hearts of men everywhere. Molly should know. He’s seen it. “He’s under a spell. Let us go, or _else_.”

“Or else what?” the man sneers.

Yasha reaches up over her shoulder, and very slowly brings her sword out of its sheath, inch by inch. The whole time, she’s staring the man dead in the eye.

The man takes a step back. Then another. Then another. Then he turns on his heel and scampers off, calling to a couple of his friends, “Nothing! Nothing, just some tourists fucking where they shouldn’t!”

Molly waits till they’ve vanished, then he leans over and pulls the door open. Jester comes spilling out, dusting off her skirt and glaring after the human.

“We need to get out of here,” says Yasha, as Molly leans against her and breathes out. The rush is still burning through his body, nowhere to go now that the threat is gone except through the agitated swings of his tail. Which, by the way, keeps twinging, but it’s a dull ache compared to what it had been before. “Now.”

“What about the guard from earlier?” Jester asks.

“I sort of chased him off when he came back,” says Yasha, already turning towards the entrance. “But he’s bound to come back sooner or later. Come on.”

Molly falls in step behind Yasha, bouncing back and forth on his heels, restless. He shoves his shaking hands into his coat pockets, but there’s nothing he can do about his tail, twitching wildly.

Jester steps up beside him and nudges his shoulder. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?” she asks.

“Other than some bruises, I’ll be fine,” Molly says, as they step back out of the private area. Yasha glances around, then motions for them to follow her. “What about you? You knew this Rojen before, a little bit, did he act like this then?”

“Yeah, kinda,” says Jester. “He was, like, a total dick, and sometimes he would get super weird in his letters to my mom, but then one day he stopped visiting. I don’t know why.” There’s a moment’s pause, then she says, contemplatively, “Although I guess it was because he thinks the chateau is like, super haunted now.” She trails off, then glances at him as if expecting an answer.

Molly shrugs, taps lightly at his throat. A hand sneaks back into his coat, feeling around for his notebook and pencil.

“Oh, right,” says Jester. “Do you think so too?”

“If it were me, Jester, dear, I wouldn’t place the blame on the ghosts, not with you around,” says Molly, fondly. “You’re far more of a terror to the rich and powerful than any shade or spirit could ever hope to be.”

Jester preens, as they pass the communal baths, the lockers, the people coming in and out. She spins on her heel and waves goodbye to Mel as the woman passes them by, and Molly stops in his tracks a moment to catch Mel’s sleeve.

“What is it?” says Mel, sounding more than a little annoyed. “One of our guards just up and left his post, I gotta go yell at him. Whaddaya want?”

Molly tugs a gold coin out of his pocket instead of his pencil, and presses it into her hand. Then he brings her knuckles up to his lips and presses a light kiss there.

Mel stares at him. Then, slowly, her mouth stretches up into a real smile, exposing broken tusks and a few missing teeth. “You’re a good one, kid,” she says, her hand dropping from his. “A big flatterer, but a good one.” She looks up at Yasha, then at Jester, and says, “You look after your mute friend here. Seems to me, he’s a good egg.”

“We will!” says Jester. “We’re gonna take really good care of him.”

She walks off then, and a wave of relief crashes over Molly. Yasha steps closer, just in time for him to sag against her, and pats his shoulder awkwardly. He huffs out a small laugh, and pats her arm back.

Then Jester says, “This was fun! Also we should definitely get out of here before she realizes we chased her guard off.”

“Agreed,” says Yasha.

Molly brings his notebook out, then his pencil, and writes, _where to next?_

Jester hums, just as a man pushing a cart decorated with flower crowns passes by. She looks at the man, then at Yasha, then at Molly.

“Let’s go enjoy this festival,” she says. Then she turns on her heel and runs after the man with the flower crowns, and it’s all Molly can do to keep up with her. Jester’s a sprinter when she’s sufficiently motivated, apparently.

Well, that’s fine. He is too.

\--

Caleb’s copying over spells into his spare spellbook when the tavern doors fly open. And the windows, too. He looks up, just in time to see Jester, flowers dangling from her head, clapping her hands with delight as she strides inside. Yasha follows in her wake, a beautiful crown of flowers atop her hair, clashing against the rest of her. They do, however, bring out her eyes, and Caleb can already imagine Beau’s stunned face when she sees Yasha.

He chuckles to himself at the thought.

Then Molly walks inside, and Caleb’s thoughts screech to a sudden stop.

He looks better, now. He’d looked a little bit better before than when he’d reunited with them, certainly, but a little grimier than Caleb knows he usually prefers. Preferred. Prefers. Now, though—his hair’s been washed, and tied into an intricate braid that drops over one shoulder, less pale now that Molly’s regularly outside. The dirt and grime and tangles have apparently been combed out as best as possible, and there’s barely a speck of dirt on Molly’s clothes. Somehow he’s found the time to take a bath, and even get his dress fixed, judging from the lack of a noticeable hole in it.

And he’s—wearing a flower crown. Three of them, to be exact, two of which are dangling from his horns. It’s ridiculous. No person should wear three flower crowns at once, especially not if one is in pastel colors with bright yellows mixed in for accents, another is pink and purple snapdragons and sprigs of lavender and snowdrops of pure white, and another is red and white and blue. It makes them look tacky. It should make Molly look ridiculous. It truly should.

Caleb’s heart skips a beat anyway, because it has never listened to reason and logic since Molly smiled up at the sky in Hupperdook. Maybe even since before that day. Maybe even in Zadash, when Molly had given him a small, hesitant smile after Jester’s Zone of Truth had gotten Molly to tell them all of what little past he had.

And it refuses to start now, the stupid thing.

Caleb looks down at his spellbook. Right, that’s one spell he won’t be copying down, he’s too distracted. With a sigh, he puts the quill and ink and papers away.

And that, of course, is when Molly catches sight of him. He grins, bright and delighted to see him, and turns on his heel to wave Jester off before she can head upstairs, Yasha in tow. Then he turns back and practically dances over to Caleb’s table, leaving petals and leaves in his wake.

He puts his own notebook down and slides it across to Caleb.

“ _Was ist—_ ” Caleb starts, before remembering the morning’s mistake. He shivers, and in Common, says, “What—Do you want me to read this?”

Molly nods, mimes flipping through the pages, then holds up three fingers. Then he sucks in and chews his lower lip thoughtfully, and raises a fourth finger.

“Three to four pages’ worth?” Caleb guesses.

Molly nods. He gives an exaggerated sigh of relief as he slumps into his chair and shakes his hand out.

“It is easier when you are used to it,” says Caleb, with a shrug. “Although I will admit, it may be best to write with breaks in between to rest your hand. I learned that the hard way, when I was younger.” Then he adds, “ _Sag etwas,_ Mollymauk.”

“You couldn’t have said that before I decided to write a summary of our misadventures?” Molly huffs. “I think my hand’s cramping up. It’s never done that before. I’ve never _written_ so much before, is it usually this painful? No, wait, don’t answer that, I heard what you said the first time. You make it look all too easy, Mr. Caleb.”

“It is only because of practice, Mr. Mollymauk,” says Caleb, opening the notebook and scanning for the latest page. “Long hours of it. _Sag etwas,_ Mollymauk, _bitte_.”

“I pity your younger self if this is what he had to contend with, on top of everything else,” says Molly, sincerely. “I think if I had to write any reports my hand would probably be far more fucked up than the rest of me. Which is saying something.”

“ _Ja_ , well, it is a bit difficult to write reports when you are not officially supposed to have been near the premises at the time of death,” says Caleb, absently. Then he pauses, wincing because—that must be too raw a wound to poke at, for Molly. It had been all right before for Caleb to be dry about it, because it had been his past and his trauma alone, and his way of coping with it, but it might not be the same way for Mollymauk.

Then he hears a brief, aborted burst of laughter, and looks up from the notebook to see Molly stifling a laugh behind his hand.

He can almost hear what Molly wants to say now. _Why, Caleb, did you make a joke?_

“And no, that was not a joke,” he very flatly informs Molly, holding in the urge to snicker too. Molly gives in, then, to the urge to at least let out a small giggle, before it tapers off. “It is very hard to joke when you live in the North, you see. The winters come and freeze all the laughter in your throat, and by the time the spring arrives to thaw it out the time to laugh has long since passed. It is very awkward to laugh at a joke that was told a month ago.”

Molly snickers again, the sound of his laughter a musical thing. Composers would weep to hear it, Caleb thinks, knowing they could never write a melody as beautiful as that simple thing. No tune could ever capture the wonder in it, the sweet lightness of Molly’s joy. No artist could replicate the spark of delight in his eye when he smiles, either.

Caleb doesn’t deserve it, but here he is anyway, basking in the sound like he does. Here he is, chasing after it like a starved dog. How weak he is, how selfish. A better man would’ve left, a long time ago. A better man wouldn’t be in this position in the first place, his heart in the broken hands of someone who he dragged down into the mud and shadows of his past.

Only Molly’s voice echoes in the back of his head. _It’s not your burden to bear._ Maybe months ago Caleb would’ve shot that down, because what would Molly, conscious for only two years, know of burdens?

The question rings hollow, now. He can see the answer well enough, etched in the still-dark circles under Molly’s eyes, the scar across his eyebrow, the silence that’s fallen over them without his voice and his laughter filling it up. Caleb looks down, now, aware of Molly’s eyes on him, trying his best to pretend he isn’t.

It lasts a minute before he gives up the pretense, and meets Molly’s red eyes again. He still has the flower crowns on, although now he’s rearranging them around on his head, trying to balance them precariously atop his horns. One falls off, the one with snapdragons and lavender, and Molly sighs theatrically.

Caleb’s out of his seat in a moment, before he thinks about it, and he picks it up off the floor. “You should be more careful with these, they’re fragile,” he says, moving to place the crown back on Molly’s head.

Molly’s fingers wrap around his wrist, stopping him in his tracks. He stands and takes the crown from Caleb’s hands, then gently places it on Caleb’s head. His hands, warm and calloused from handling swords, drift down to frame Caleb’s face. His palms are warm against Caleb’s cheeks, tiefling-hot, the same way it had been so long ago.

Caleb’s breath catches in his throat. His words all dry up in his throat, all his arcane ability rendered useless, the clever brain he was always praised for stuttering to a stop at Molly’s touch. Ikithon would have an aneurysm, to see this: one of his finest and brightest students, one of his _chosen_ , crowned with snapdragons and lavender by one of _die lebenden Toten_ , held with the utmost care like a precious jewel. He’d call it a weakness, a crutch Caleb didn’t need.

Some part of Caleb can’t quite bring himself to care, because Molly is holding him. Molly’s presence is miraculous enough, the fact that he’s still here, still holding Caleb like he’s worth something—

 _I would like to kiss you, Mollymauk Tealeaf,_ he thinks. _I would like to see you smile and know I put it there. I would like to make you laugh, because the sound of it is the sort of music no melody can recreate. I would like to be close to you, always, because being close to you is like basking in the light of a small sun. Do you know what you do to me, Mollymauk? You make me feel as though I could almost be more than this._

It’s a dangerous trail of thought to walk down. He should pull away, take the crown off his head and give it back to Molly. He should put an end to this, stomp out the warm, fluttery feeling in his chest and step away from Molly’s warmth. He should leave. He should _leave_.

He doesn’t.

 _I want to kiss you._ The words are there on the tip of his tongue, sweet and spun-sugar fragile.

Molly leans forward, but when he kisses Caleb, it’s only a feather-light brush of his lips against Caleb’s hairline. He tucks stray strands of red hair behind Caleb’s ear, steps back, and gives an approving nod.

“Wouldn’t this look better on you?” Caleb manages to say, adjusting the crown on his head a little. Purple and red, those are Molly’s colors. Caleb shouldn’t be wearing them. Caleb shouldn’t even be here, and he certainly shouldn’t want Mollymauk like this. No good can come of that want.

Molly shakes his head, and mimes braiding hair and sticking things in it. Flowers, Caleb quickly realizes, like Nott’s protection charms. They’d fallen out of his hair when he’d had to step into the Lawmaster’s office, and so far Nott hasn’t found suitable replacements yet. Apparently Molly has, though, or at least he’d thought Caleb might benefit in some way from having a crown of snapdragons and lavender sitting atop his head.

“Oh,” says Caleb, heart beating very fast against his chest as he follows the thread of thought. “ _Danke_ , I suppose. Uh—do you want any ale? Whiskey? Beer?”

Molly holds three fingers up—all right, he wants the beer. Then he points to himself.

“You can’t _talk_ ,” Caleb points out, reasonably, and judging from Molly’s resigned sigh, he’s hit the mark on what he meant. “I’ll order the beer instead.”

And he turns, and goes, and leaves a trail of snapdragons and snowdrops in his wake. He must make a sight, he imagines, a shabby traveler with flowers in his red, red hair, starbursts of bright color against muddy ground. Certainly he’s gotten the bartender’s attention, the gnome squinting up at him as Caleb fishes two gold pieces out of his coat.

“Don’t drip petals all over my counter,” the man grunts. “I just got it clean.”

Caleb looks down at the counter. There are still dark stains on the old wood, underneath the permanent layer of grime and dirt, and he’s certain no amount of scrubbing will ever be able to make it look even halfway clean. He pushes the flower crown back a little, anyway, just enough to keep the petals off the man’s counter. “I’d like two beers,” he says. “For myself and for my friend.”

“That tiefling over there in the dress?” says the bartender. He snorts. “Pretty sure they’re not a _friend_ anymore, not when you’re looking at them like that.”

“You have us mistaken, I’m afraid,” says Caleb. “They and I are friends and nothing more.”

“And I’m Sovereign Uriel of Tal’Dorei reincarnated,” the bartender scoffs, and Caleb rolls his eyes up towards the ceiling. “Listen, usually I don’t give a rat’s ass, but I’m feeling charitable today, so I’ll give you some friendly advice: _look back_ , every once in a while.”

Caleb looks back, sees Molly sitting at the table and staring off into the distance, crimson eyes fixed somewhere near the door. Molly blinks, catches his gaze, and flashes a small smile. Wholly without his permission, Caleb’s lips turn up in a small smile too, and a pleasant warmth spreads out from his lungs into his veins, suffusing every part of him.

Then he looks at the bartender, who’s raised an eyebrow as he pours the beer into two tankards. “See?” the man says.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” says Caleb, bristling a little at this stranger and his _advice_. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t _know_ why it’s a bad idea. “They smile at everyone. And—it is not any of your business, either.”

“I cannot fucking believe you,” says the bartender, shaking his head. “Gods. Fine. Have your damn beer.” He puts a tray up onto the counter, sets both tankards down on top of it. “This is what being charitable always gets me,” the man grumbles. “Stupid stubborn idiots, insisting on being stupid and stubborn.”

Caleb narrows his eyes at the bartender, but—it’s not worth it, he supposes. He doesn’t want to have to explain his past to some stranger, _again_ , not when he’s already done so to Verrin in exchange for her information. He’s better equipped now than he had been before, but now there is a drunk, angry, bitter woman that is not named Beauregard walking around who knows his secret. He can only count on her utter contempt of Astrid to keep her honest, and even then—well, her loyalties can be bought, it seems.

The thought of Astrid makes him glance back at Molly, idly tracing out shapes on the wooden table. There are, he supposes, easier ways to get the information he wants on Astrid, but—Molly’s memory isn’t reliable. It hadn’t been the best even before he’d been taken and brainwashed, and now that he has been, Caleb can’t rely on Molly being able to give a full and true account. He might believe it to be full and true, as Caleb had so long ago, but Modify Memory played a significant part in Caleb’s own past, and he doesn’t see any reason why either Astrid or Ikithon would’ve significantly changed such a reliable formula.

...and if he’s honest with himself, which he might as well be, it’s all too clear that Molly would rather not talk about her. He could, if Caleb asked him to. He’s the sort of person who would get himself killed to keep someone safe, Caleb doesn’t doubt that if he asked, Molly would reluctantly dig up every scrap of information he could remember of Astrid’s plans, of her present character, to help the rest of them. But that would hurt more than it would help.

“Just so you know,” the bartender helpfully says, breaking Caleb out of his thoughts, “you’re staring at them again.”

 _Fick dich,_ Caleb does not say. Instead he smiles tightly at the bartender, picks up the tray, and silently sends Frumpkin, who’d been enjoying the peace of the rafters, over to annoy the hell out of the bartender. Then he walks back over to his and Molly’s table, and sets the tray down in the center of it.

Molly grabs a tankard and takes a sip, as Caleb sits back down and reads through the notebook’s newest pages, picking up where he left off. Something about winning passes to an exclusive bathhouse? Which does explain why Molly looks cleaner, now, his hair less unkempt if still somewhat ragged.

He reads on.

Then he looks up at Molly and says, “You eavesdropped on a crime lord,” as flatly as possible, because—yeah, of course they did. Why is he still surprised? They stole a boat once by accident, and Molly had been there when they stole the dodecahedron, less accidentally. Eavesdropping on a crime lord is exactly the kind of ill-advised thing the Mighty Nein would do.

Molly nods.

Caleb lets out a long, slow breath, and counts in Zemnian inside his head, backwards: _zehn, neun, acht, sieben, sechs, fünf…_

“He didn’t see you, though?” he asks, suddenly.

Molly shakes his head, and reaches over to point at a line further down the page than Caleb’s gotten. _no 1 saw us til we finished evesdroping and I bangd my elbo,_ the line reads, and then continues on in what Caleb’s come to recognize as Molly’s run-on and haphazard way of writing. He backtracks a little, back to where he left off, and continues reading.

Once he’s done, he looks up at Molly and says, “ _How_ did all three of you manage to get away from that bathhouse?”

Molly taps his fingers against the wooden table, chewing on his bottom lip in deep thought. Then he stands two fingers up on the table and walks them, very fast, away from his tankard.

“You walked very fast?” Caleb guesses.

Molly nods. He gestures to the flower crowns on his head—he’d found someone selling them right after that, Caleb guesses. He stands out in this tavern, a riot of colors in the midst of a slow afternoon, and it’s _right_ to see on him. Molly, in Caleb’s memory, is a bright burst of color and light, like a firework exploding against the dark sky of a summer night. Just as brief, too, only a flash of color against the darkness before it fades away into smoke.

At least he had been, but he’s here now, and perhaps Molly isn’t so much a firework as he is just—stubborn candlelight, unwilling to flicker out despite all attempts to snuff him out. If Caleb were more of a poet, he’d take the metaphor further.

But he is no poet, just some broken shell of a man with clumsy words and no good reason for poetry, and even less of a reason to try to sum Molly up like a poet would.

He shuts the notebook, slides it back to Molly. He watches as Molly’s fingers idly skim over the pages, possessive already of this one small thing. It’s a familiar feeling, one Caleb knows intimately: the desire to cling to everything that’s _his_ , truly his, not the Empire’s and not his teacher’s. It’s a rebellion, in small ways, a rejection of the so-called selflessness that Caleb had once learned under Ikithon’s tutelage, and perhaps of the same “value” that had been drilled into Molly’s head.

Molly’s fingers are long and slender, calloused from handling his swords. Warm, too, Caleb knows that from experience. For a moment he entertains reaching out, lacing his fingers with Molly’s, bringing his hand up to kiss his knuckles like his father would do to his mother sometimes, when Caleb was a boy, to draw a real laugh out of her after a long and tiring day.

He doesn’t.

Instead he says, “I am going to ask you to answer my questions again. Will that be all right with you?”

Eodwulf would shake his head to see this—Caleb, asking permission from one of the still-living corpses. Astrid would find it cute, but pointless, because it wasn’t like they would _care_. They were traitors, heretics, disgusting people who deserved whatever they got, who revoked the right to give permission when they committed their crimes.

The boy Caleb used to be had agreed with that. But Caleb is not that boy, anymore, and Molly is no corpse. There is life in his eyes, light in his smile, and Caleb lo— _cares_ about him, helplessly. Besides, this situation is fucked up enough. The least he can do is ask Molly, before he messes around with who Molly can or can’t talk to.

Molly nods, in answer.

“ _Beantworte meine Fragen,_ Mollymauk,” Caleb says, putting a note of authority in his voice. Now that he knows what this does, he knows when the order shifts things around in Molly’s head—he can see it in how Molly’s eyes close, how he shivers like a chill has crept up his spine. “Where are we?”

“A tavern with kinda shitty beer,” says Molly, and Caleb lets out a relieved breath. “Gods, that feels weird.”

“What feels weird?”

“The whole—transfer, from you to Jester and now to you again,” says Molly, tapping the side of his temple. “It’s a bit like an itch that you can’t quite reach on your back, but for me it’s inside my head.”

“Oh,” says Caleb. He hadn’t realized it felt like that, in the little time he’d spent around those corpse soldiers. “Do you mind it?”

“Not so much if it’s you,” says Molly, taking a sip of his tankard. “Besides, at this point, I’m well-used to it.” He hunches his shoulders up, looking down at his beer, and doesn’t say any more beyond that.

Caleb’s gut twists into a knot, sending bile up his throat. He washes it back down with a sip of his beer, but it burns on the way down. Seven months of being passed around like chattel, used as little more than an attack dog—that’s not something Molly, of all people, should claim to be used to. That’s not a fate Molly deserves.

Fuck, they should’ve looked harder.

Caleb lets out a breath as he sets his beer back down on the table. “You wrote about a Ghavnos there,” he says. “Do you know if we can still talk to him?”

“I highly doubt it, considering he was being _taken care of_ ,” says Molly, looking up briefly from his beer to Caleb before his eyes fall back to the inside of his tankard. “But he mentioned a gang calling themselves, and you’re going to hate this, the Dogs of Hell. And they’re not exactly performing to Rattlesnake’s very lofty expectations.”

“The what,” says Caleb, flatly, because—well. _Really._

Molly shrugs. Yasha descends the stairs once more, and Molly twists in his seat to wave her off with a smile when he spies her. Caleb sees her smile tiredly back at him, before she walks out the door.

“That is a terrible name,” says Caleb, rubbing at his eyes and shaking his head. _Dogs of Hell,_ god, that sounds like a fifteen-year-old boy with a head full of fantasies named them. He’s tempted to ask which hell. “We may have to ask Verrin about them, the next time we meet her,” he says instead. “Did you find out anything else?”

“Besides what I’ve written about, no, although I do want it on the record that I think this is a terrible idea, even more than before,” says Molly. “I just don’t have any better ones.”

“Neither do I,” says Caleb. “Neither does anyone else.” They can’t trust the Empire, and the nearest cleric that they do trust besides Jester is taking his well-deserved break from the rest of them in his temple with his family. Gods only know where Shakastë’s gone again. “Believe me, if we had any better ideas, we would be following those. Do you have any better now?” He winces as soon as the question’s out of his mouth, because it’s transparently just Caleb’s attempt at finding some way for Molly to speak around the geas.

“Not since you asked me barely ten seconds ago,” says Molly, deadpan, but there’s a grateful ghost of a smile, there one moment and gone the next. “I really wish I did. I don’t want anyone to get hurt trying to fix this. I want it _gone_ , don’t get me wrong, I want my head to be my own again, I want—I want to go to sleep without worrying if I’ll wake up me or that, fuck, what did you say it was? _Dee lee_ —”

“Do you mean _die lebenden Toten_?” says Caleb.

“Yes, that,” says Molly, “I’d love to not wake up one of those again. But your healer went stark raving mad minutes after clearing your head, and I’m not exactly a big fan of watching it happen to anyone else.” _Jester,_ he doesn’t say, but they both know who he means anyway.

“She will be fine,” says Caleb, but his voice sounds too optimistic even to him. “And you will be able to sleep again, without needing me around.”

Molly stares at him, then sighs, opening his notebook and writing something down. He turns his notebook around: _I dont mind you._

Caleb’s heart does not speed up, nor does it do anything out of the extraordinary, but his fingers trace over the letters with a reverence he’s only reserved for intricate spells on fine paper. “You don’t?” he asks.

Molly licks his lips, shakes his head. His hand reaches for Caleb’s, and his fingers lace into the spaces between Caleb’s fingers. Caleb swallows, and distantly wonders how it is that his heartbeat can sound so loud in his ears now, when it had happily pounded away silently in his chest for most of his life. “I don’t,” Molly says, “because you’re warm, and I—”

“ _Hey, obnoxious one!_ ”

Molly gives a theatrical groan. His hand slips out of Caleb’s, and he turns to give Beau a glare that doesn’t really hold much heat behind it.

Beau, just now descending the stairs, glares back. “Jester says it’s important,” she says. “Don’t tell her I told you, but she wants a captive audience for her dramatic reading of _Heart of the Sea_.”

Molly chuckles, picks his notebook up and writes something in it that makes Beau roll her eyes at him. Then he walks away from the table and up the stairs, leaving behind a trail of flowers from the crowns still adorning his head.

Caleb breathes out, relieved for Beau and her incredibly terrible sense of timing.

Then he snaps Frumpkin back onto his lap, and buries his hands in his familiar’s fur, trying not to think of a warm hand in his.


	22. bury it and rise above

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from CHVRCHES’ “Bury It”.

Beau watches Molly go, dripping flowers all over the place like he’s some kind of druid or something. Then she walks over to Caleb, sits down across the table from him and says, “What did Molly tell you about the things he, Jester and Yasha got up to while they were taking a bath?”

Caleb blinks, as if coming out of a Frumpkin trance. Beau knows better, though, she’s seen him staring at Molly like Molly’s a lighthouse in the dark, and he’s a man paddling desperately back to shore. “Uh,” he says. “Can you repeat the question, please, Beauregard?”

“What’d Molly say about the bathhouse?” Beau says, simpler this time, pulling a foot up to get a little more comfortable. Fjord’s coming down soon, he’d just waved Beau off with an excuse of polishing up his armor, but some of the things she’d heard needs a fresh perspective. Especially from someone who hasn’t met Lestra. “‘Cause Jester was real chatty about it, she’d said she heard that this Rattlesnake was seriously trying to push Lestra out of business.”

“He wrote much the same thing,” says Caleb. “What did Jester say? Or Yasha?”

“Yasha just said she liked Rattlesnake even less than Lestra,” says Beau. “Then she said she had to go ‘cause she had a vision of, like, a stall or something and she really needed to go check it out.” It had sounded like a transparent excuse to Beau, but Yasha had left so quickly afterwards that Beau hadn’t been able to catch her for long enough to ask what was up with her. She still doesn’t know for sure, just knows Yasha’s not exactly the biggest fan of Lestra for some reason. “Jester said a lot more, though. Said Lestra’d had a lot more trouble than just a warehouse getting stolen from her.”

“Mollymauk wrote about that, too,” says Caleb, petting his cat idly. “He mentioned the gang’s name as well. Apparently they’re called the Dogs of Hell.”

“What the _fuck_ ,” says Beau.

“I had the same thought,” says Caleb, the cat person.

Beau groans, and massages her temples. “Dammit,” she mutters. “She couldn’t have said anything about that before? Her or Verrin.” Verrin, who Beau hasn’t seen in a couple of hours, and she kinda has to admit it sorta sucks. She’d have liked to actually talk to her, she’s very much Beau’s type.

Caleb stares at her, then lets out a long sigh and glances at the door, as if searching for someone. Frumpkin, in his lap, stretches out and starts kneading at his trousers. “And you have no idea why Yasha went out, again?” he asks.

“Uh, no,” says Beau, scrunching her nose up at him. “Why’re we talking about Yasha again?”

“Nothing, and it was only a passing thought,” says Caleb, unconvincingly. Beau’s about to call him out on this before he changes the subject and says, “Anyway, from what you’ve said, you and Lestra did not part on very good terms.”

“That’s an understatement,” Beau says, sorely. She looks down at the tankard that Molly left behind, considers it, then sighs. Well, it would be a waste of shitty beer. She picks it up and takes a good, long sip, ignoring Caleb’s judgey face. He sticks his hands into bread. He has no room left to judge her. “I—told you about my father.”

“The wine-maker, _ja_ ,” says Caleb. “You ranted about him, at length, one time, while we were at sea and you found that bottle of his wine.”

“Good times,” says Beau, a little nostalgic now. “That was a fucking shitty bottle of wine, honestly.” She takes another sip, and ignores Caleb’s judgey face even harder. Molly should’ve taken his tankard up with him if he wanted to keep it. “Well. Lestra and I weren’t—we didn’t have a lot of illusions over what we were to each other. We had a business relationship, and she wasn’t a bad lay.”

“So what happened that it was soured?” Caleb asks.

Beau’s breath hisses out between her teeth. “My father had a better offer than I did,” she says, simply. “She told him some of the backdoors I used. He closed them. Then—well, he proved to be a controlling dick, as per usual for him.”

“Oh,” says Caleb, understanding. Of course he’d get it, she supposes. He had a controlling dick of an authority figure lording shit over his head, too.

“Yeah,” says Beau, before she downs what’s left of the beer in Molly’s tankard. It’s a pleasant burn going down her throat, and she burps a little. “We didn’t have much of a relationship after that, business or otherwise. Didn’t help that she skipped town right after.”

“Would you trust her not to turn on us, now?” Caleb asks.

Beau sighs, and leans back in her chair. “If you asked me days ago, I would’ve said no,” she says.

“But now?”

“I don’t know.” She glances over at the bartender, who’s chatting up a dwarf with a beard braided into three parts. Judging from the slightly flirty smile, she’s not going to be able to catch this guy’s attention for a while. She sighs. “It’s been too damn long since we last saw each other, and. Y’know, I’m trying to be a little better, like, as a person, in general. Give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“When has that ever worked out for us?” Caleb asks.

“Caduceus,” says Beau, sprawling a little. “And a lot of other people who turned out to be less asshole-ish than I thought they would be.” She pauses, and then says, “That said, I still don’t trust her a lot. I mean, yeah, I could be biased ‘cause of our history, but Yasha doesn’t like her either. So.”

“Yasha has her own reasons to be biased against Lestra,” says Caleb, giving Beau a flat stare as he speaks. It’s weird. It’s so goddamn weird. Also, unsettling as hell.

“Don’t _do_ that,” she says.

“Do what,” he says.

“Stare at me!” Beau huffs. “Why’re you even staring at me like that, anyway? Is there, what, is there something stuck between my teeth? On my chin?”

“I am talking to you, what else would I be looking at?” says Caleb, so unconvincingly that it’s a wonder his pants haven’t spontaneously caught fire.

 _Molly’s ass if he were here, you are so not subtle,_ Beau does not say, because she’s pretty sure Caleb would do that flat stare at her again. And, like. It really is kind of unsettling, especially since now his cat is doing it too. “Literally anything else,” she says instead. “Like—Fjord! Hey, Fjord!”

Fjord, just now coming down, plucks a flower from his hair and looks down at it, with this slightly smitten face that Beau is pretty sure is because of Jester. Goddammit. All her friends are pining idiots. “Yeah?” says Fjord, looking up now and replacing the flower, his smitten expression falling away now for a more graver one. “Did you guys work something out yet?”

“Jester, Yasha and Molly say anything to you about what they got up to?” says Beau. “Or Jester and Yasha, anyway.”

“Yeah, Jester talked to me about it before she went to do Molly’s hair,” says Fjord, and tells them—pretty much the same things that Beau knows, that Caleb’s apparently read from Molly’s notebook. Nothing new, really: just the sense that Lestra’s in a lot more trouble than she said she was, just the sense that Verrin gives more of a shit than she says she does, just the knowledge that they’re in a lot of shit that they shouldn’t even be in. By all rights, Beau would ordinarily be one of the first to be calling for them to back the fuck off. Yeah, the money might be good, but there’s too much shit to deal with here. The Mighty Nein might be good, but they aren’t _that_ good.

But—fuck, Molly’d died for her. She’d seen him fall, seen the red bloom on white snow. He’d been a good person. Kind of an asshole, but also the kind of good who’d lay his life down to keep someone safe. He didn’t deserve to have someone fuck his head up, and he doesn’t deserve this shit-ass excuse of an existence. She owes him. The asshole. He better be grateful, she’s doing so much shit she never thought she’d do to make sure he’s okay.

An image swims back up in her memory: Molly, staring down at the Death card, hand shaking. Another: Molly, chained in the back of the cart, watching them with a wariness and a fear she had never seen on him before, hopes never to see again. Another: Molly, pulling a chair out, a flyer in his hand for a show unlike any other.

“Beau?” Fjord’s voice cuts into Beau’s thoughts, shaking her out of the sudden slew of memories she’s almost fallen into. He’s sitting beside her now, no drink or flower in his hand.

“Yeah?” she says, nodding to Fjord.

“She’s your ex,” he says, and Beau scowls at him. “What do you wanna do?”

“We do what she asks,” Beau says. “But like. I wanna make sure we’re not gonna find themselves in the middle of shit again, so—how about I head out to her warehouse tonight? Just casing the joint. We got the time, we got nine days till the festival finishes.”

“Just you?” says Caleb.

“Not just me,” says Beau. “Maybe Nott too. I don’t wanna have to talk with any guards any more than I have to, and she’s the sneakiest of all of us. And I kinda wanna ask a third along—either of you, maybe.”

“Might wanna take Caleb, I’m thinking about doing a little more digging into the Dogs of Hell tonight,” says Fjord, voice lower as he glances around, cautiously. “And the other gangs, while we’re at it. We don’t have any idea who else this Rattlesnake might have in his pocket, besides the Crownsguard. Would be good to have the measure of at least a few of them, beyond one encounter in a bathhouse with the one that’s clearly dangling off the gangplank.”

“Uh, what,” says Beau.

“What do you mean?” asks Caleb.

“Dangling off the—never mind, sailor thing,” says Fjord, letting out a long sigh. “You want me to call the rest down? Jester and Molly’ll be awful peeved if we keep talking without them.”

“Yeah, do, I wanna see if I can talk Nott into coming with me,” says Beau. “Though we’re gonna need to wait for Yasha to come back.”

“Eh, she will not have gone far, I’m sure she has only gone to buy something for someone _very special_ ,” says Caleb, leveling another flat stare at Beau.

“Quit _staring_ ,” Beau huffs.

\--

An interlude, steering briefly away from the Mighty Nein and their troubles:

Four men lie unconscious on the ground, in a dirty, grimy alleyway somewhere in Lynbroke. The alleys here in the more joyously celebratory (but still somewhat less than affluent) district of Lynbroke don’t tend to get as much attention from criminal elements as the Dumps do, but that doesn’t mean they’re completely absent. Hell, the festival’s brought them all out in full fucking force, and some of them are bound to see a half-drunk woman stumbling down an alleyway as an easy target.

Verrin kicks one in the side, and he groans in pain. “Stay down,” she says, still feeling the buzz from all the drinking. “‘M’not in the fucking mood for your bullshit.”

The guy, thankfully, stays down.

She turns and says, to the blind half-elf slumped against the wall, all his weight on one foot, “Goddammit, Mikhail, I had that. I _had that_. Where the fuck did you even come from?”

“You’re welcome, Ver, and I came straight from my store and followed the drunken cussing,” says Mikhail, his blind eyes staring at a spot on the wall over her shoulder. There’s a nasty bruise forming over his cheekbone, and for a moment Verrin blinks, and he’s an idealistic kid again, standing up against bullies. She blinks again, and he’s just a blind tailor who should really stop _fighting_. “You really need to stop wandering down dark alleys and picking fights with muggers. What would ‘Yong and Janie say?”

“Not a goddamn thing if I can help it,” says Verrin, roughly, a heartbeat too late. The grief rises in her throat again, grief at the loss of what the three of them used to have, but she chokes it back down. “And that’s none of your fucking business, Mika. Just—go back to your husband. I’ll be fine.” To prove it, she rips her thumb open with her teeth, and pulls a thin stream of brown liquid out of the wound.

“I told him I’d make sure you were safe,” says Mikhail, limping forward now. His hand stretches out, searching before the back of his knuckles hits her shoulder. “There you are,” he says, turning in her direction now. “He said, and I’m directly quoting him here, _can you get her to her place, I’ll hold the fort down here_.”

“Fucking fantastic,” Verrin grumbles, and slips under his arm so she can better hold him up. No way Mikhail’s going to go back to his store once he’s dropped her off at her place, with his leg. “I got you _and_ Flynn clucking over me like mother hens. Like the tourists weren’t enough.”

“Holy shit, you took a job that brought you into regular contact with tourists?” says Mikhail, as he and Verrin more or less stumble back out into broad daylight. Lucky Mikhail, he’s blind. Verrin curses under her breath and squints, because goddammit, it’s too damn bright. “It’s a miracle. Someone call a temple.”

“Fuck you,” says Verrin, turning now and guiding Mikhail down the street. “They’re shitty adventurers. Their buddy ran into some fucked-up shit and they didn’t have the foresight to bring the necessary shit to fix him.” The purple tiefling’s face swims back up into the forefront of her mind, his red eyes staring not at her or at his friends, but at something else, something darker. She wonders if it’s Astrid he had been seeing, then. “Now I gotta make sure they don’t accidentally wander into all the wrong places while fixing him, or else I won’t get paid.”

“And you won’t be able to get more booze, which is such a tragedy,” Mikhail says, deadpan. Verrin drags him away from the center of the sidewalk, just in time as the piragua guy walks past, shouting the prices of his wares. “By the way, how’s Lestra?”

Verrin looks away, and hopes to god Mikhail’s stupid hearing doesn’t pick up on the way her heart starts to pick up speed. God fucking damn this heart of hers, it refuses to listen to all sense. “She’s fine,” she says. “Always fucking fine. Doesn’t ever stop being fine, even when dumbass thugs are threatening her business. It’s like she’s cast a goddamn ward or something on herself.”

“You could talk to her about that,” says Mikhail.

“Fuck no, that’s not what she pays me to care about,” says Verrin. “And stop giving me advice. You’re not qualified to give me advice. Two years ago you were landing in sewer tunnels and telling everyone you had some fucking crusade you _had to_ fulfill, and now you’re a tailor.”

“And the only thing that had to happen,” says Mikhail, tiredly, “was my leg being broken.”

“Does it hurt now?” Verrin asks, keeping Mikhail out of the way of the stomping, laughing dancers.

“A bit,” Mikhail admits, summoning up a tired smile. It’s the smile that Verrin knows means he’s trying his hardest not to worry someone. “It’s not as bad as it could be.”

“You’re a goddamn fucking liar,” says Verrin, hauling Mikhail down a convenient shortcut and keeping an eye out. “Glad that’s not changed.”

“But you’ve changed,” says Mikhail. “You have—magic, now, in your blood.”

“Woo-fucking-hoo, I’m a mutant freak, point to you, dumbshit,” says Verrin. “And you’re a limping _married_ tailor. We all changed.”

“Yeah,” says Mikhail, “used to be you, Goyong and Janie would haul me back home to Flynn.”

Janie again. Verrin swallows, and says, “Lucky him, now he doesn’t have to worry about all three of us eating him out of house and home.”

“He worries, Ver,” says Mikhail, as Verrin turns another corner. “He’s always going to worry about one of us. I think he just can’t break the habit, honestly, even now.” He shifts his weight onto his bad leg, hisses in pain, and just sags against Verrin. “ _Fuck,_ ” he says, with feeling.

“What?” says Verrin, with a grunt of effort. “Move it!” she barks at a grimy kid, who scampers out of the way.

“We have a job repairing and altering some clothes,” Mikhail says. “This tiefling came in and asked that we make his purchases tail-friendly, and I was _planning_ on getting started later—”

“Yeah, yeah, say no more, I’ll go keep your husband from going fucking nuts,” says Verrin. “And help him patch this tiefling’s shit up too, I guess. Get some damn rest, you kicked the shit out of some dumbfucks.”

“I will, I will,” says Mikhail. “Have you talked with Goyong yet since the last time you guys met?”

“No,” says Verrin. “See, there’s this problem where he’s literally the youngest lieutenant in the Crownsguard in _decades_.” She barks out a bitter laugh. “He hasn’t got the time and I sure as fuck don’t feel like barging in on that. He’s got enough shit to deal with from fucking Brandybuck and the rest of them.”

“You could also just ask,” says Mikhail, in that tone he uses when he thinks he’s being the reasonable one here. It makes Verrin want to pitch him into the sewers where he belongs, the asshole.

“Fuck, no,” says Verrin. “Not happening.”

“You won’t know unless you try,” says Mikhail, encouraging.

“I liked you better when you were brooding on rooftops and talking about being the fucking night and bringing the pain or some shit,” Verrin says, steering Mikhail around another corner to dodge a troop of off-duty Crownsguard, drunkenly reveling in the festival’s more alcoholic offerings. She has no illusions how that match would turn out. “Why’d you have to get so fucking happy?”

“Well, my leg happened, for starters, so I had to find a new career very fast,” says Mikhail. “And then I got married. So that was a pretty big factor, I wanted to keep enjoying being married to Flynn for longer than a year, at most.” He sags a little against Verrin in relief, when they’re out of earshot of the Crownsguard. “Those guys did not sound very sober,” he says.

“They weren’t,” says Verrin. Two more turns, and she’s walking up the steps to her own shitty little place. “Hold on to me,” she says.

“I’m holding,” says Mikhail, and he’s not lying, he’s clinging on to her shirt pretty damn tightly. A memory bubbles to the surface, unbidden: Mikhail under a dark mask, clinging on to Verrin and Goyong under the dark of night, the three of them scurrying away from a fight and towards where Janie’s waiting to heal her and Mikhail. Verrin grits her teeth at the memory and shoves it back down—dwelling on the past won’t do her any good, here and now.

She kicks the door in, and hauls Mikhail inside.


	23. so tired of playing these games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from James Vincent McMorrow's "We Don't Eat".

“Caleb, what time is it?” Nott asks, squinting up at what little of the fading light she can see from down here.

“Almost dusk,” says Caleb, ducking under a low-hanging branch. He dusts some of the leaves off his coat, fingers twitching like he’s almost about to cast Dancing Lights before he seems to remember. His hand slips into his pocket, and he mumbles something under his breath. “Does anyone need darkvision?” he calls behind him.

“I got my goggles, I’m fine,” says Beau.

Molly, trailing behind Beau, shakes his head and waves at his eyes.

They’d all pretty much stared at Molly, when he’d raised his hand during the strategy meeting and scribbled _Im going with Bo_. Nott had all but choked on her whiskey, but she has to admit that Molly had raised some pretty good points for coming along—if one of them has to be on Molly-sitting duty away from the others, that’s one less person who could come with either team. And neither situation should have anyone or anything that could send Molly into half-feral murder puppet mode, as Nott is starting to think of it, so as long as he’s on the sidelines the risk isn’t very huge.

Honestly, though, Nott’s just pretty sure he’s getting antsy over being benched a lot. She gets it. She’s been benched a couple of times too, more often in her clan than in the Mighty Nein, but even Caleb’s had his moments of overprotectiveness. Which, not necessary, Nott can keep an eye out for herself. She’s more worried about _these_ people, her friends and her boy.

Molly, though. Molly’s always been the kind of person who’d put himself in the middle of trouble for a friend. He’s an arrogant purple asshole sometimes, a little less so now that he isn’t talking a lot, but she can’t deny that.

So here they are, the four of them: Nott, her boy, Beau, and a formerly dead and formerly brainwashed and currently cloaked tiefling, walking through the woods as the sky grows dark. Probably? Nott can’t tell through the thick canopy of leaves above them. She’s not sure how Caleb can, but then again Caleb is very smart.

Beau takes out and unrolls the parchment from her pocket. “All right,” she says, “so according to Lestra and her map, we’re looking for a fuckload of pine trees. Which, hey, here we are.” She waves a hand to indicate the forest, and the great big pine trees around them and the pinecones scattered around their feet. “Now we’re looking for symbols of the Changebringer carved into the trees, but I dunno if those are still reliable, or if anyone else is using that route. She didn’t say.”

“I can scout ahead!” says Nott. “I’ll let you know if everything’s clear via Message.”

She glances at Molly, sees him closing his fingers around a nonexistent hilt before he seems to remember he doesn’t have his swords. Or anything weapon-like.

“I could come with you,” Beau starts, “I’ve got the map—”

“I got this!” says Nott, and before any of them can protest, she scurries off into the bushes. Just behind her, she hears Molly make an annoyed noise, like he’d wanted to make himself useful. Tough luck, big guy, this is literally her job, and she’s much more careful going about it now than she was in that crazy necromancer’s lab.

Case in point: a patch of leaves that look suspiciously too neat. She stops in her tracks, then gingerly steps over the patch. She glances around, and her sharp eyes spot the gleam of a wire hidden underneath. Following the wire, she spies a log crudely rigged up just out of sight, meant to crush an unknowing intruder into a splatter of brains and gore against a nearby tree.

Leaves crunch behind her. She spins, crossbow already halfway out, then stops.

“ _Mollymauk,_ ” she hisses, seeing Molly raising his hands, tugging the hood of his cloak back so she can see his red eyes and horns and tattoos. “What are you _doing_ here?”

She doesn’t expect him to say, “Helping you out,” but say it he does, and she blinks at him in shock before she realizes—he must’ve gotten Caleb to order him to answer her questions. “Two’s better than one, isn’t it?”

Nott stares at him, and then says, “You realize I don’t need your help, right? I’m _very_ good at this. Way better than you are. You know that, right?”

“The last time I saw you, you were failing miserably at picking a lock,” says Molly. “And then you were hit by that cone, I didn’t know if you were even still alive. I just—figured I could help you out now.”

It’s a filthy lie if she’s ever heard one. She’s never known Molly to like being cooped up for long somewhere, especially when there’s something going on somewhere else.

“Go back to Caleb and Beau, that’s how you can help,” she says. “I’ve got this.” So saying, she whips around and steps gingerly over the patch of leaves. Gods, she’d forgotten he could be such an arrogant purple asshole sometimes, but now it’s replaying once more in her head. He’d been a good person, sure, but at the same time, this group’s a collection of assholes, and it’s not as if Molly had been an exception.

Something sinks under her foot. She looks down, and the dirt, and underneath it the rotten planks of wood it’s covering, starts to give way under her weight.

 _Oh, shit,_ she thinks. Then her instincts kick in and she jumps back, fast, almost colliding into Molly as the ground just falls away, exposing a pit ten feet deep with wooden stakes sticking up from the floor.

She looks at Molly, who’s raised both eyebrows into his hair.

“Don’t say a word,” she says, reflexively.

Molly huffs out a tired laugh, his hand floating up to his throat. He mimes squeezing it tight, and she remembers then that he can’t talk, not unless she asks him something. And, well, she supposes after that performance he’s not going to go away, so she may as well get him to help her disarm the traps that she can’t reach.

Starting with the log. He’s taller than she is.

“You see that log?” she says, pointing at it. Molly glances over, then nods. “Help me get it down and hide it. _Without_ letting anyone know we’re there.”

Molly hops to it, and Nott clambers up the tree. She pulls her dagger out and saws through the ropes holding the log up, and Molly’s not the strongest of the Nein but he does well enough, only giving a pained grunt as he deposits the log on the ground. Then he sits on it and shakes his hands out, as Nott climbs back down.

“Were you getting antsy?” she asks, tugging on his sleeve. He gets to his feet and brushes the cloak off, fastens it tighter so the red of his dress doesn’t show as much.

“I didn’t want to take anyone away from being able to help,” says Molly. He _sounds_ like he’s telling the truth, but Nott remembers what he called the truth so long ago: a vicious thing that thought you owed it something. She’s half-certain he thinks worse of it now that it’s come to collect with interest. “Besides, this is just recon. Nothing’s going to happen.”

She’d believe him more if it didn’t sound like he was trying to convince himself, too. As things stand, she raises both her eyebrows. “You also hated being cooped up,” she says.

Molly doesn’t say anything, just gives a huffy little sigh like he’d like to retort. But he falls in behind her anyway, and nudges her towards the direction of a tree with the symbol of the Changebringer on it.

“So it didn’t change!” Nott crows, taking out her copper wire. “ _Caleb! We found a tree with the Changebringer’s symbol. It’s just fifty feet ahead, take a left at the stake pit. Also, we disarmed all the traps—watch your step! You can reply to this message._ ” She tucks the wire away, and sees Molly’s pensive face. “What?”

“You’re sure about that?” he asks, turning slowly around like he’s looking for something, strangely glowing eyes narrowing.

“Oh, fuck off, Grandpa,” Nott huffs, squinting up at him and crossing her arms across her chest. “Who died and made you the expert in traps?”

“Well, _I_ died, technically,” says Molly, and Nott resists the urge to flick a crumbling pastry at him. “And I’m not an expert by a long shot, but I have—experience in sneaking into places I shouldn’t be, let’s say.” Then he does something Nott never saw him do, before he died: he looks away from her and shudders, tugging the cloak closer around himself when he does.

Nott steps closer, and tugs him away towards the tree with the Changebringer’s symbol etched into the bark. “Sit down,” she says, and Molly sits, looking a little bit cornered. “You didn’t have experience before. What’s changed now?”

“You know this,” says Molly, absently tucking his hair back behind his ear. “You can guess. Jester’s told you, I’m sure.”

“I want to hear it from you,” says Nott. “Not Jester. She’s not the one with the new stuff here. What changed?”

Molly lets out a long, slow breath, and says, “There’s things I don’t remember terribly well. Things I’m pretty sure aren’t _real_ —Caleb mentioned that his mentor fucked with his head, and now I’m wondering if there’s something about all of this that I don’t know because Astrid ripped it straight from my head and layered something else over it. I’m not sure how I picked up that—that thing I did, for example, making someone else feel the hits they dealt to me, other than in training, but I’m starting to think that might not be right, anymore.” He looks down at his hands and picks, idly, at his nails.

“I do remember walking through a forest like this one and waiting to ambush someone, though,” he says, after a heartbeat’s passed, not looking at her. “A straggler who’d fled the main group, when the mage who had me then found them.”

“What happened to that straggler when you found him?” Nott asks.

“You don’t want to know,” says Molly, quiet, curling up into a ball and tugging at his cloak. He looks away from her, but his eyes glow in the darkness, eerily red. Like blood. He seems to debate something with himself for a moment, before he sighs and continues: “Trust me on this, Nott, you don’t _want_ to know what—what happened to the poor bastard.”

There’s something odd in Molly’s voice, but Nott finds that she doesn’t—she doesn’t really care, per se. He’s right, she doesn’t want to know what happened to the poor man that Molly ambushed. She can imagine it pretty well, really, if she looks back through her own memories: Molly with an ugly, serrated sword in hand, holding the awful edge close to Caleb’s throat. If it hadn’t been for that Alarm, she doesn’t think she’d be standing here.

“All right,” she says. “All right. I won’t pry.”

Molly looks back at her. It’s strange, she thought he’d look more relieved, but there’s a haunted look on his face, his eyebrows scrunching together like he’s not sure he’s okay. He curls up closer, but doesn’t say anything more, just exhales and looks away from her once more, his face falling into something—guilty?

It’s weird, and more than a little concerning, because Nott’s never known Molly to feel guilty for almost anything. So she steps closer and gently lays a hand on his shoulder. Someone has to comfort him, and Nott _is_ here. It’s not so different from Caleb, surely?

He flinches away, and scoots a little further away from her to boot. She sighs, and sits down next to him, kicking away a mushroom sprouting where she wants to sit.

“Hey, Molly,” she says, “we’re friends. You can talk to me. You know that, right?”

Molly hunches in on himself and looks at her again. Then he lets out a breath. “ _Fuck_ me,” he mutters, then his fist comes up and hits her shoulder, just hard enough to _hurt_. Pain flashes like lightning, and like lightning hitting a tree it burns the charm spell away, leaving a cold clarity where that pleasant haze had been.

He charmed her.

The _fucker_.

“What the _fuck_ , Molly,” she hisses. “You—I was just asking, what the _hell?_ ”

“Maybe I don’t want to answer,” says Molly, an edge in his voice now. He’s practically sinking into the cloak, red eyes focused on her, and she recognizes this tone, defensive and even a little desperate—he’d used it, once before, she remembers, when Jester had cast Zone of Truth and he’d told them everything he knew. _Maybe he was a goblin hunter. Maybe he ate them. Raw._ “Maybe I killed him. Maybe I did worse than that to him. Maybe if I told you I’d have to kill you. _That’s_ what.” His voice shakes, a little, fear creeping into his tone.

“I don’t think you would,” she says. “Would you?”

“I don’t _want_ to,” says Molly. “But this thing in my head has made it very, very clear that what I want is not up for discussion and has not been for a very, very long time.” He licks his lips. “I wanted to get you to back off. Both for your own safety and, I’ll admit, because I truly do not want to answer. How I picked up that experience is not something I want to look at, I already—there’s too much of it just rattling around in my head, I’m not going to dig for more. I just didn’t realize—”

He cuts himself off, then sighs. Moments pass, before Nott realizes: he’s just let the geas kick back in. It must be bad, if Molly’s letting the spell he hates kick in.

“What didn’t you realize?” she prompts, because she’s not going to let this go so easily. No one else is here, and Molly’s hurting, somewhere deep inside. This kind of hurt isn’t something that can just be ignored, or charmed away, or shoved in a little secret box somewhere in the mind’s back rooms. Nott knows this, deep in her bones.

“You’re just not going to stop until I tell you,” says Molly, resigned.

“I have to hear you say it,” says Nott. “So, again, what didn’t you realize then that you figured out now?”

“You’ve seen Caleb cast Suggestion on people,” says Molly, reluctantly, like he’s dragging every word out of his throat. That’s not magic, she knows. “You’ve seen the glassy eyes, the way they just slump like—like a marionette that’s not being played with.” He looks away now from her now, pulling his knees even closer in until he can rest his chin on top of them. It makes him look like a little ball of misery. It makes him look, thinks Nott, much like Caleb had been, in the early days of her knowing him in that cell. “I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it, and worse besides. It’s not a good sensation, it feels like someone else’s fingers digging into my head, rearranging it the way they saw fit to. And I saw the glassy eyes on you, and that slump, and—all I could think of was that you might be a fretful mess, but I didn’t want to be the person who’d make you into even more of a mess, just for my own comfort.”

Nott bumps his side, and rests her hand on his shoulder once more. He still flinches, a little, skittish under her palm, but he doesn’t try to pull away again. It works, this talking thing. Nott wishes they’d do it more.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “that your past came back to bite you like this. I really am.” She sighs. “Just—you could’ve just said. That you didn’t want to talk. Or you could’ve just _not_ talked. Why didn’t you?”

“Because you’re a very nosy sort of person and I literally can’t talk unless you ask me a question,” says Molly. “I didn’t—all of that, I never wanted it, and now that I’m out I don’t even want to look at it. I just want to move on and leave it in the past, where it belongs.”

“But it’s not allowing you,” says Nott. “It won’t let you move on until you face it. And you are going to have to face it, if we’re going to have any hope of pulling that thing in your head out for good. Did you know that?”

Molly exhales. “I thought we were just looking for diamond dust,” he says. “I don’t have to, gods, _face my past_ just for that, surely.”

“She’s going to come after you, because she’s invested way too much already, I bet,” says Nott, certainty and dread tightening around her intestines. Her fingers twitch towards her flask. Alcohol, that’s what she needs, lots of liquor burning down her throat, like fire. Unbidden, she wonders: had Astrid read the letter? Had she realized the connection between her prize and her long-lost friend from Blumenthal? “If not you, then Caleb. And Caleb likes to think otherwise, but he wouldn’t leave this group and he wouldn’t leave you. Do you know that?”

“You worry too much about this,” says Molly. “That’s what I know. It’s all a hypothetical, anyway—she _might_ want me back, fine. She might also decide to find herself a new toy in the meantime, and I truly hope it takes her a long time to find one. If the gods are merciful she might even die in an accident.” His head falls back against the trunk, horns making a dull _thud_ as they hit the bark. Nott’s eye catches on the charms dangling from his horns—not as bright and shiny as the ones he used to have, the ones he was buried with. “We’ll worry about Astrid if she ever does come after us. Right now I just want to be the only person in my own head. And right now, I don’t know how I feel anymore about getting into other people’s.” Then he pauses, and says, “I—I’m glad. About Caleb. I thought maybe you both would leave.”

“We work really well together now, all of us,” says Nott. “And—me and Caleb, when it was just the two of us, we weren’t really living. We were just trying to survive till the next day. Here, in this group, we don’t have to worry about that.” She pulls her knee up to her chest and looks, really _looks_ at Molly. “You don’t have to, either,” she says, “we’ll keep you safe. _I’ll_ keep you safe. And you can hit me again if you think that’s just me talking under your charm spell, because I’ll say it again if I need to.”

Molly doesn’t answer, just keeps his eyes on her, like he’s waiting for something else. She rubs his shoulder now, scoots close enough that their sides are touching. Molly hasn’t moved away from her, so that must mean he’s okay with this. With her. Or at least that he’s sorted something out about charming her, and she’s not happy about that part, certainly, but—she gets it. If she had Charm Person too she’d use it to weasel out of uncomfortable situations too.

He leans against her.

“Hey, Molly,” she says, at last, “while we’re waiting, did anyone tell you yet about the time we accidentally stole a ship?”

“Wait,” says Molly, straightening up, eyes lighting up like a member of Nott’s former clan on seeing a fat, plump sheep just wandering stupidly in their direction, “you did what?”

“Hey!” says Beau, stumbling in and cursing somewhat. Caleb walks just behind her, eyes glowing faintly with magic from his lucky rock. “ _Ow_ —there was a _log_.”

“I thought we took care of that,” says Nott, frowning.

“She tripped over a log,” says Caleb.

“I thought we agreed not to say it like that!” Beau snaps.

“I never agreed to anything,” says Caleb. “All I said was that we should get going, and you said you did not want Mollymauk to know you were distracted and tripped over a log.”

“And you said yes!” says Beau, jabbing Caleb’s chest with a finger.

“I said that we _really_ have to get going,” says Caleb, his face so flat that Nott knows he’s cracking up on the inside. “I never said anything that meant I was agreeing to keep it a secret.”

Molly snickers, beside Nott, shoulders shaking with laughter. She looks at him, and it’s like a weight’s lifted off him for a little while, and she’s looking at the Mollymauk she knew—carefree and grinning, amusement in his eyes and nothing else. No ghosts, no secrets, nothing like the guilt she’d caught just moments earlier. It’s as if nothing has happened, nothing has changed, they’re in the Labenda Swamp and everything’s still okay, if muddy and slimy. At any moment now she half-expects Molly to make some comment he thinks is clever.

Nott blinks, and she’s in the present once more, and the ghost of that memory sits beside her. He’s still leaning against her, although his laughter has subsided now, as Beau and Caleb have fallen into a conversation about which direction to go, what traps they might expect.

She lets her hand drop, stands up, and says, “Caleb! Can I see that map?”

\--

The Dogs of Hell operate, appropriately, out of a really shitty bar on the outskirts of the worst parts of Lynbroke, also appropriately dubbed Ninth Hell’s Kitchen (or the Dumps, depending on who you ask). Which, in Jester’s opinion, is just, like, overkill. It’s already super obvious the place is a dump: there’s barely any decorations strung up, and everyone in it keeps shooting her and Fjord the dirtiest looks. Rude. It doesn’t need a ridiculous, ominous nickname on top of it.

At least they have Yasha with them, and when Yasha glares back at people, they tend to back down. Even Lynbroke people back down under the force of Yasha’s glare, although it hasn’t escaped Jester’s notice that for a couple of them, she has to start unsheathing her sword first.

They don’t have to ask around for directions too much, because the Dogs of Hell make themselves really obvious, with their sleeveless leathers and the spiked shoulder pauldrons and the little banner printed on the backs of their leathers that read _Dogs of Hell_. Like a uniform.

“We should have a uniform,” says Jester, as the three of them stroll along. There’s a lot more Dogs now, hurrying towards a bar with a dangling body made from wood for a sign. _The Noose,_ reads the carved letters on the wooden chest. “A super cool uniform so we can always identify each other.”

“Like them?” says Yasha, nodding to the bar and the Dogs stepping inside. The bar, from the outside, isn’t really much to look at: whatever paint the sign used to have has faded with age, and the door is just a little bit crooked on its hinges, creaking loudly with every swing. The patrons don’t look much better, lots of them wear way too much black and brown, and their faces don’t seem very accustomed to smiling.

“Like them but with lots more color,” says Jester. “Maybe a cape. A really fancy cape! Ooh, in pink with a logo on it!”

“I don’t know about the cape, Jester,” Fjord puts in, “pretty sure some of us would trip in it. But if you’re taking suggestions for uniforms and logos, how ‘bout something with nine sides for a symbol?”

“Oh my _gosh_ you’re right!” Jester exclaims. “A nonagon! We’d look so cool and matchy! But not, like, on the back—maybe in the front. So it’s obvious that we’re the Mighty Nein.”

“I like that,” says Yasha. “It’s very ironic.”

“Big nine in the middle,” Fjord says, and Jester grins at him as they walk up to the very entrance of the Noose. “So everyone knows who we are on sight.”

“I’ll make it _glittery_ ,” she promises him, just as the big, burly goliath stationed by the dilapidated entrance sticks a meaty hand out across the doorway, narrowing his eyes at them.

“Who’re you three?” he rumbles.

“The Mighty Nein,” says Fjord. “Part of it, anyway.”

The goliath squints at them and says, “Never heard of you.” He flicks his fingers out like he’s showing off a stray dog. “Go on,” he says. “Get. You’re not supposed to be here.”

“We just need to talk to someone,” says Fjord. “That’s all. We’ll be out of here once that’s done, and I’m sure it’ll be done quick.”

“Should’ve talked to them ‘fore they came in here, then,” says the goliath, cracking his knuckles now. “Get, before I _make_ you get.”

“Get what?” says Yasha, and Jester looks over to see her already resting her hand on the hilt of her sword.

Jester lets out a breath and says, “We’re friends with Ghavnos!” Then she pauses, and hurriedly adds, to make it even more believable, “We’re super old friends with him. We’ve all known each other since we were babies!”

“Yep,” says Yasha, unconvincingly.

Fjord just keeps smiling, but Jester’s not blind, she can tell there’s a strain there now. “Yeah, we’re all old friends here,” he says. “We heard he was in town, figured it wouldn’t hurt to go see how he was doing. He is in there, right? I mean, we came all this way.”

The goliath looks between the three of them, his brow furrowed as though he’s trying to figure them out. Jester can practically see the wheels struggling to turn in his head. “Wait here,” he says eventually, before he turns around and opens the door. His head _thunk_ s against the doorway, and he lets out a guttural curse before he comes inside.

Jester starts forward anyway.

The door slams in her face, with even more cracks appearing in the already dented wood, and she staggers back, rubbing at her nose. “Okay, rude,” she says, checking her nose. It doesn’t seem broken, at least, which is good.

“He did say to wait,” says Fjord, looking around, as if nervous. For a moment Jester wants to ask him why, before she remembers: the last time she, Fjord and Yasha were hanging out together, they’d been kidnapped, and Molly had—

She shivers. Her eyes slide away from Fjord and Yasha, and in the fading light the glares shot their way take on a more sinister shade, beyond just plain racism. She draws her cloak up and pulls it tight around herself, and her hand drifts down to her holy symbol, hanging from her belt. She squeezes once, and feels the Traveler’s warmth seep into her palm. _I’m here._

Breathe in, breathe out. Nott’s voice drifts into her mind: _You can do this, you’re the best detective ever._ Okay, maybe that’s just Jester imagining what Nott would say, and it maybe isn’t accurate but. Still.

They’re going to be okay. They’re better now. She won’t let what happened before happen again, she _won’t_.

She feels Yasha’s bulk bumping against her side. She looks up and sees Yasha nervously glancing around as well, her fingers still curled around the hilt of her sword, ready to pull at a moment’s notice. She nudges Yasha back, and sees her friend relax just a little bit. Just enough for Jester to relax too, for the rabbit of her heart to stop thumping against her ribcage.

Fjord steps closer too. He looks at her, and thank the Traveler for darkvision, because she can see the worry on his face, written plain as anything across his brow.

Then the goliath opens the door, staring all three of them down. “ _Come in_ ,” he says, in a low, angry tone that brooks no arguments. He frowns quite a lot, now that Jester thinks about it. She palms the Wand of Smile out from its pocket in her haversack, grinning to herself. Oh, she’s going to have a little bit of fun.

Fjord leads them inside, nodding politely to the goliath. Yasha follows after him, and Jester trails in after her, keeping up her cheery smile. She very discreetly prods the goliath with the wand, and whistles innocently as she steps inside, keeping close to Yasha as the door shuts. Outside, there’s a muffled string of curses, and a ground-gravel voice plaintively asking, _What’s going on?!_

The inside of the bar is not as pretty as the outside. For one thing, there’s not a lot of tables and chairs, and what few are there happen to be groaning under the weight of lots and lots of weapons. Some tables even have weird stains on them that Jester is pretty sure might be blood. The _floor_ has bloodstains on it that no one’s apparently bothered to at least try to scrub away. For another thing, it’s crowded with sweaty, angry people, all of them staring at Jester and Fjord and Yasha like the three of them have done something horribly, terribly _wrong_ , somehow.

Some of them are even, very slowly, sharpening their weapons while they’re looking at them.

Jester hopes they don’t get into a huge fight here. She has very few spells left, and they’re not a lot of people.

Her hand drifts down to the handle of her handaxe, this time. Her fingers tighten around it when someone emerges from the back room, eyes narrowing at them almost immediately.

“Boss’ll see you now, so get in here,” he declares, reaching out towards Yasha.

Yasha’s hand grabs his wrist almost immediately, her grip tight and growing tighter. The guy gives a small, pained hiss. “We can walk inside by ourselves,” Yasha says, coolly, but even Jester can see the simmering anger in her eyes.

She lets go. The guy jerks his hand back, and steps aside, cradling his wrist. All eyes have now trained on Yasha, and Jester tenses a little. She can see Fjord going still, too, fingers clenching like he’s about to summon his falchion. For a moment, everything is as quiet as Caleb’s beloved libraries. Even more quiet, because at least there she could hear pages turning, and Caleb sometimes murmuring something to himself. Here, everyone has gone still and silent, and the world balances on the head of a pin. One wrong move, and Jester knows in her bones that there’s a good chance they might not make it out.

Then the guy looks around and barks, “Get back to what you were doing!”

The world moves again, and everyone in the bar goes back to their weapons, their drinks, whatever else they were doing. Jester breathes a sigh of relief, but she keeps a hand near her axe.

She steps in last, after Fjord and Yasha, and if her hand drifts closer to her holy symbol, well, no one’s going to see anyway.


	24. wanna see how far down i can sink?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from My Chemical Romance's "This Is How I Disappear".

Sometimes Caleb does not do too badly, at walking around as quiet as a mouse. He’s had to get very good at it, over the years, just trying to survive out of the asylum, pulling himself and a plan to save his parents together. He’s gotten much better since being pulled into this strange little group of, and this is something he thinks with a surprising amount of affection now, _lunatics_. At any rate, Caleb likes to think he’s not so bad as he used to be, when he was younger, at moving silently through a dim, shadowed wood. It helps that his stone is giving him darkvision, so everything isn’t as dark as it would be if he’d gone with any other benefit.

...it _should_ help, anyway.

Except Caleb doesn’t see the rock until he’s already midway to the ground, and when he bangs his elbow on the way down he can’t bite back a pained Zemnian curse.

The crash is _loud_ , and painful, and Caleb has to lie on his back for a couple seconds and hold in the urge to curse even louder, because there’s still a twinge where his elbow hit the ground. What did Jester call it, once? His funny bone? It’s not so funny now.

Nott’s head pops into sight, her eyes wide and worried. “Caleb, are you okay?” she asks.

Beau’s head also pops into view, interrupting the view of leaves and branches on Caleb’s right side. “Hey, Caleb, break anything?” she asks, kneeling down.

He’s not surprised to see Molly’s face next. Unlike the other two, Molly doesn’t say anything, but the concern in his face is obvious. So is the panic, poorly suppressed as it is, although—why would he panic? Then Caleb remembers: beyond Molly’s affection for him, as part of the Mighty Nein, he’s the only one who can tell Molly to speak. If anything happens to him then Molly would be in dire straits.

The irony does not escape him. He’d never wanted to tie Molly to himself, to his broken and jagged-glass self, yet here they are.

“ _Ja_ ,” Caleb starts to say.

Then someone, just twenty feet away, yells, “Is anyone there? Fuck _dammit_ , Joe, y’said nobody else would be comin’ out this way!”

“Nobody else should be coming out this way,” another voice retorts, sounding shaken. “But, fuck, I mean—it could just be the wind. Lots of things ‘round here. I even heard owls could imitate people, could just be an owl. Gotta be. An owl that talks like a tourist.”

“Who the fuck told you _that_?” the first voice says, an edge in his voice. Caleb rolls over onto his front, but doesn’t stand up just yet. Beau is already crouched low, and Nott’s crossbow is back in her hand. Molly pulls his hood up, and something _blank_ settles over his expression, what little can be seen in the shadows of his hood. Something all too familiar. “No, I know what I heard. Sounded like _people_. Sounded like somebody’s out here with us.”

“Your imagination’s workin’ overtime, is what it sounds like,” says the other voice. Joe, apparently. Caleb would believe him, if it didn’t sound like he’s trying to convince himself, too. “It’s nothing, Griff. _Nothing._ Now come on, let’s get moving, this shipment’s not gonna move itself, and we are so _fucking_ late in getting it already.”

“It’ll be able to move itself even less if a buncha shitheads come out of the bushes to kill us,” says his friend Griff. “C’mon, let’s go check it out.”

Nott winds her crossbow back. Beau’s hand drifts up to her staff, ready to sling it off her back. Molly goes tense.

Caleb lets flame flicker around his fingertips, watching carefully. They can’t let these people know they’re here.

A half-elf with a long fall of dark hair steps out of the bushes. His eyes grow wide before Nott’s crossbow bolt punches into his shoulder, pulling a pained grunt out of him as he staggers back into his friend, a stout dwarf with a wild beard. “What the _fuck,_ ” says the dwarf.

“I told you!” hisses the half-elf.

Beau _moves_ after Nott, her staff slamming down onto the half-elf’s temple. The man curses, barely managing to get his shield off his back before Beau strikes again, but her knuckles only scrape against sturdy wood on that strike. “ _Ow,_ ” she hisses, then kicks out, her heel connecting with the half-elf’s knee. The man buckles with a pained cry, and Beau slams the end of her staff onto his head again. “Stay the fuck down!”

In the midst of this, the dwarf’s scampered away, drawing a bow and arrow and aiming it. He nocks the arrow and lets go, and Caleb staggers back, numb at first. _Oh,_ he thinks, looking down at the arrow sticking out of his gut, _that is not good._

Nott snarls, and brings her crossbow around to the dwarf, but there’s a blur of motion. Caleb’s eyes flick to Beau, but she hasn’t moved away from the half-elf, so who—

“Oh _fuck me_ it’s a _demon_!” screams the dwarf. Then he staggers back from a blow, throwing down the bow and drawing two daggers.

Oh. Molly. Molly’s shaking his hand out and glaring down at the dwarf, but—and Caleb is so relieved to see this—there’s none of that blankness in his expression anymore. If anything, Mollymauk looks a little annoyed at the insult.

“That is very rude, he is a tiefling,” says Caleb, because someone has to correct these people, and Beau and Nott are too busy. Then he shoves some licorice root into his mouth, biting down and trying to think past the pain. He whispers some arcane words, focusing on shaping the sounds with his tongue and the motions with his fingers, and directs the magic towards Molly.

It seems to settle over Mollymauk like a second skin, his movements becoming a blur. He throws Caleb a surprised glance, then easily sidesteps the dwarf’s attempt to slash at him with one of the daggers.

Nott fires another bolt, at the dwarf this time. It manages to only graze his cheek, embedding into a nearby tree.

“You lil’ green piece a’shit!” the dwarf snaps out, charging towards her—and then tripping over a tiefling tail. He swears and twists around, getting back to his feet just in time to see that Molly has disappeared from his view and gone clear over to the other side. “Oh, _fuck_ —”

“Joe!” shouts the half-elf, brawling with Beau on the forest floor. With great effort, he pushes her off, trying to draw a sword from his hip as he spins away from Beau. One step, two steps—

Then he stops, blood streaming from his eyes as they go black. “What the fuck,” he says, “what the fucking flying—”

Beau tackles him again, about as graceful as a raging bull. “Don’t fucking _move_ ,” she snarls, getting her staff up under his neck. “Don’t move or we’re gonna make your whole fucking day even worse than it already is, got it?” To the dwarf, she shouts, “And that goes for you too! Move and your friend gets it!”

“Oh, god, I don’t wanna die,” the half-elf, who Caleb thinks may be Griff, whimpers. “Don’t let me die, Joe, _don’t let me die_.”

Joe cocks his head at him, considering for a moment. Then he sighs, and says, “All right, all right.” He bends over, as if about to put the daggers down.

Then he whips around and throws them, blade-first, towards Molly—

_—the glaive sinks in, twists, and the light seems to burn out of his eyes and his body collapses onto the snow and blood blooms like a rose under the snow and no no no gods no not Molly—_

—he blinks, and the daggers have embedded into a tree. _Oh,_ thinks Caleb, seeing the blur of Molly’s arm as his fist lands square in the middle of the dwarf’s face, _right. Haste._ He’s all right. He’s all right. He isn’t dead. He’s okay.

Despite the numbness where the arrow’s buried itself, despite the direness of their situation, despite Caleb’s own awareness that things have gone very, very wrong and their plan has gone to hell, all he feels is _relief_. Molly is all right and alive, and will be for the foreseeable future. Everything else is—honestly, everything else is business as usual for the Mighty Nein, at this point.

The dwarf stumbles back, swearing. “Why, you _little_ —”

Nott’s crossbow bolt punches into the back of the dwarf’s knee, and he goes to one knee with a scream. Caleb staggers over to them, mindful of the arrow currently buried in his stomach, and grabs Molly’s shoulder and leans, because he’s not going to be able to move once the adrenaline fades away. Molly’s arm snakes around his waist, holding him steady, and he glances at the arrow in Caleb’s stomach with alarm.

“I think,” he says, voice already slurring with pain, “that you should stop attempting to attack us, and accept your resounding defeat.”

Joe looks around—at Beau, holding her staff up under Griff’s throat, ready to jerk it upward, hard, and snap his neck. At Nott, her crossbow fixed on him. At Molly, his eerie red eyes glowing in the darkness. Even at Caleb himself, although Caleb figures he probably doesn’t look as intimidating as the others do.

“Fine,” says Joe, after a moment. For good measure, he holds both hands up in a gesture of surrender. “ _Fine._ Y’got me.”

“Thanks a fuckin’ lot,” Griff grumbles, and then yelps as Beau presses her staff down just a little more on his throat.

“Don’t talk unless I say so,” she says, her voice low and dangerous. “And you’re gonna be doing a lot of that soon enough. We want guides that’ll show us the way to the warehouse. The one you were going to—and _don’t_ even think about fucking with us.”

“We won’t,” Joe grumbles. “Got us fucking nailed to a tree by our balls.”

“Yeah, _right_ ,” scoffs Griff, but Caleb glances down and sees a darkening spot in the man’s trousers. Bravado is not working out for him, clearly, no matter how hard he’s pretending it is. “They’re—They’re not that great!”

“We’ve gotta tie them up,” says Nott. “So they can’t fight us.”

And that, of course, is when Beau says, “Did any of us bring rope?”

Nott says, “Shit.”

\--

The first thing that hits Yasha about this inner sanctum is how _bad_ it smells. Like—

No, not like Xhorhas, she’d smell rot and piss and shit if the place was anything like Xhorhas. No, this is just the stench of unwashed clothes, blood and sweat and vomit and too many cheap scents trying to make the wearer seem more intimidating. She’s familiar with the smell, but here it’s even stronger than she’s used to.

She exhales. Holds, then inhales.

There is a single table in the middle of the room, covered in green cloth. There are three notches on every side, and scattered colored balls on the surface. It’s a game, she thinks, but what sort of game it is, she has no idea. Two notches have a colored ball already, so maybe it’s about filling them up in a specific manner? She’s not sure.

A bald, mustachioed human glares at them from behind the table, sanding the tip of a long stick in his hand. The flickering torchlight throws dark shadows across his craggy face, illuminates the scars and the tattoo of a horned dog’s skull on his cheek.

“Uh, boss,” starts one of the other men inside. There’s a long stick in his hand too, and Yasha wonders idly what they’re supposed to be. Spears, maybe? No, if they were spears, they’d be much sharper.

The man holds a hand up, shutting his underling up. He moves around the table, to the side, and bends over.

“It’s a power play,” Jester whispers to Fjord, just a little too loudly.

Fjord sighs, and murmurs something that Yasha can’t quite hear. Whatever it is, it seems to get Jester to be quiet for a little while longer.

Yasha could spit. This isn’t the kind of power play she likes, where two people try to slam each other’s fists into a table. This is the kind of power play that nobles and high-ranking officials would engage in, making someone _wait_ like they’re doing anything better. It’s worse here, because she knows very well that everyone in this room is armed and on the edge of a precipice. One push, and things are bound to trip and fall right into hell.

Some part of her is tempted to push. But Jester and Fjord are here too, and while Jester’s strong enough to at least hold her own against Yasha in a contest of strength, the two of them alone might not be able to fight their way out of this. And Fjord is much weaker than both of them. No, she’ll have to play this game too, or at least stand here and wait for this asshole to decide that he’s done playing with them, like Nott with a particularly juicy rat. Except they’re the rat in this case.

She wrinkles her nose. Her fingers curl loosely around the hilt of her sword again, and the men inside the room—four in all, that Yasha can see, not including Fjord—go still. Even their boss freezes, bent over the table, his eyes on her.

Jester whistles innocently. Fjord’s yellow eyes have fixed on some spot near the wall, and he’s holding his breath like he’s scared of what might happen next.

She gives them a thin smile, and deliberately takes her hand off the sword.

It’s as if the room itself breathes from the relief. Weapons lower, crossbows unwind, and the man who seems to be the leader of the Dogs hits one of the colored balls on the table with the end of his stick. The ball hits another, which rolls on to hit another, which starts to roll towards a notch but stops near the edge. Then the man stands, looks the three of them up and down, and snorts out a derisive huff.

“So,” he says. “You’re Ghavnos’ friends.”

“Yeah,” says Fjord, standing up straight and folding his arms across his chest. The man’s much taller than he is, but Yasha can respect the effort Fjord’s making here. “Been a while since we last saw him, though, and we figured we’d catch up with him. We heard he’d joined up with you folk, so—here we are.”

“We’re super old friends,” Jester says. “I named my puppy after him! He’s a super adorable puppy.”

“Oh?” says the man, raising an eyebrow. “Where’s your puppy now?”

“He’s at home,” says Jester, her tail noticeably drooping a little, like she’s thinking about Nugget. Like she’s thinking about who she left Nugget with. “But we definitely named him after Ghavnos. His name’s Ghavy.”

“Ghavy, huh,” says the man. He looks at Fjord now, and says, “And how did you come to find out he was with us? How did you know to find us here?”

“He mentioned being in a club, last time we talked,” says Fjord, smoother than Jester. Certainly smoother than Yasha ever could be. “Last time we _met_ he had new tattoos. Wasn’t hard to figure shit out from there.” He shrugs. “As for the finding, all we did was ask around.”

The man watches Fjord for a moment, like a hawk stalking its prey. Then he nods, and Yasha relaxes, relieved that it apparently worked for the moment. “When was this last time that you met?” he asks.

“Seven months ago,” says Fjord.

Seven months ago, or somewhere close, Molly’d died. Yasha wishes he’d come along with her, instead of Beau, because for a moment her heart kicks against her ribcage when she looks to the side and sees nothing of him—not a flash of color, not a bright grin, not a glance of solid red eyes. He’s safe. He’s all right. They shouldn’t be in any trouble.

...but then again they shouldn’t have stolen themselves a boat back in Nicodranas, should they.

“Strange,” says the man, snapping Yasha out of her thoughts. “That could explain why he disappeared for a couple of days, then.”

“Thought he said he was visitin’ his ol’ gran,” says one of the other men, before he claps a taloned hand over his mouth. “Beggin’ your pardon, boss,” he adds, eyes wide and pleading.

“He was visiting _us_ too,” says Jester, chirpy. “We’re super close to his gran.”

“Isn’t his gran dead?” says the bald human.

“We live in the cemetery,” says Yasha, inspiration hitting her like a flash of lightning striking a tree. “And make tea out of things that grow on dead people.”

“ _Really great tea,_ ” Jester says in grave, solemn tones.

“Pretty good oolong,” Fjord offers after a moment.

The man’s eyes flick between the three of them, as if searching for any sign of a lie. Yasha tries on a grin, her lips stretching back over her teeth the way she’s seen Molly do. It makes—made— _makes_ him look vaguely amused, usually. She hopes she looks, at the very least, like she’s telling the truth.

She thinks she might be, because the man nods after a moment. He doesn’t _relax_ , but he’s not watching the three of them like they’re prey, anymore. “Might like to have some oolong after this,” he says. “I haven’t had some in a while.”

“Could make some!” one of the others, the same one from before, volunteers before his friends frantically shush him.

The man smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “If you can’t keep quiet, Curly, get the fuck out of here,” he says, and Curly—the one who spoke—scurries out of the room. “Seems like you three aren’t actively trying to fuck us, right now, but you’ve got me at a disadvantage here. I don’t know who you are.”

“If it helps,” says Fjord, “Ghavnos never really told us much about the club he’d joined.”

“Good for him,” says the man. “Shouldn’t have said anything at all, ‘course, but what can you do. Word’s bound to get around anyway.” He sighs, theatrically, and steps around to another side of the table. He lines the stick up and hits another ball. “You three tourists, though—sure as shit you’re not the usual kind of friends a dog like Ghavnos might have.”

“We are very unusual people,” says Yasha.

“Yeah, kinda noticed,” says the man, his eyes sweeping over them again. Yasha’s not sure, but something about him—it makes her think, suddenly, of the Lawmaster from Trostenwald, staring at her and the other carnies, like she’d thought they would deserve to rot in a cell for as long as possible, if only she could _find_ which one of them deserved it the most. “Name’s Ronwell. To you, it’s Ronnie.”

“Fjord,” says Fjord. “The big one’s Yasha, this is—”

“Fiona Fancypants,” says Jester, butting in.

“Fiona, Fjord, and Yasha,” Ronwell says, narrowing his beady little eyes at Jester now, like he’s seen something that’s given her away. Yasha’s hand clenches into a fist. If this man thinks to lay a hand on Jester, he’ll regret it. She’ll make damn sure of it. “Well. If you’re such good friends of Ghavnos, think I’d better take you good folk to see him.”


	25. and i feel just like a gun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from the Gaslight Anthem's "Stay Vicious".
> 
> content warning for depictions of a panic attack. skip the section that starts with _Astrid’s planted memories in his head_ to _Molly opens his eyes_ if you don't want to deal with that.

There’s not a lot of moonlight streaming in through the canopy. That—shouldn’t make Molly feel this antsy, but here he is, antsy as hell, in the midst of a dark forest with two people who have already tried to kill them now leading them towards Beau’s ex’s old warehouse. Nott’s already taken one of the daggers from the tree they’d been stuck in, and shoved one into Molly’s hand as well, telling him _it’s only a loan, give it back when we’re done here._

Beau had hung back to ask him, quietly, if it was fine that he had it. “I mean,” she had said, “it’d make me feel a hell of a lot better, not having to worry about you, but—sure you can handle it?”

Molly had given her a grin, then flipped the dagger in his hand and mimed stabbing an unseen enemy away from Beau. That had seemed to satisfy her for the moment, and she’d walked off to argue quietly with Caleb.

Here’s the thing: he’s not as sure as he’d pretended to be.

The dagger shouldn’t feel so comfortable in his hand, not when he’s never even handled it before. But there it is anyway, a strangely and unsettlingly comfortable weight. Molly is not sure if it’s comforting him, or this fucker named Lucien, or the broken, half-feral version of himself that’s still trapped in a small stone cell somewhere. So far during the night Molly hasn’t blacked out and flipped his shit, which is good, but gods only know if he’s going to be able to hold on to himself through the rest of the night, if they get into another fight.

They shouldn’t have gotten into a fight at all. He had been so sure they wouldn’t, but—well, then again, it’s been too long since…

He lets that thought trail off. That isn’t a path he wants to go down. Forward, that’s all that matters right now, he needs to keep going forward.

“Mollymauk?” says Caleb, snapping Molly out of his thoughts. “Are you all right? Only, you have been looking up for a while, now.”

Molly blinks, then looks down from the canopy, and what little moonlight he can see streaming down through the leaves, back to Caleb. Nott, Beau, and their captives are further ahead, carefully undoing a nasty-looking trap, and Molly almost starts forward to help. He doesn’t want to have to answer that question, right now.

Caleb catches the sleeve of his cloak, and says, “They can neutralize the traps by themselves, Nott has gotten much better at it than she used to be.” He licks his lips, and says, “I am going to order you to answer my questions, and then I will ask again. Will you mind?”

Molly shakes his head. It’s kind of Caleb to do this, for him, to ask first before he changes the standing order again. Objectively it should really be nothing, but this tiny little thing, this glimmer of a _choice_ —it’s like a drink of water in a desert, a drop of moonlight through the canopy. It might not be a lot, might not even be enough to tide him over, but it’s everything to Molly in the moment.

He’s grateful, for that.

“ _Beantworte meine Fragen_ , Mollymauk, _bitte_ ,” says Caleb, and Molly shivers at the sensation of—of something scratching at the _inside_ of his skull, a tingling he can’t quite reach. “Are you all right?”

“I’m all right,” says Molly, flashing a smile despite the exhausted ache that’s settled into his bones. Haste maybe hadn’t been the best idea, with the aftermath making his limbs feel like lead weights attached to his torso. “I could be better, but right now I’m doing well.” He gestures to the dagger now sheathed at his side. “I haven’t stabbed anyone I shouldn’t in hours,” he says lightly, even a little jokingly.

“ _Ja,_ and we’re very proud,” says Caleb, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards in a small smile. Molly has this feeling that if it were anybody else, they’d be a bit disturbed. “I—am sorry about what happened back there, that might be on me.”

It sort of is, honestly, but it’s not something to hold a grudge over. Molly shrugs, mimes a bridge and wiggles his fingers to substitute for water underneath it.

Caleb frowns a little, the space between his eyebrows creasing like he’s trying to work it out. “Water under the bridge,” he murmurs. “Do I have it right?”

“Yeah,” says Molly, watching him. His blue eyes glow eerily, the same way Nott’s eyes glowed in the dim light of the campfire. He’s found a way to see in the dark, somehow, in the time Molly was—away.

 _Away_ is a good word for it, anyway. And it’s far better than _dead_. Truer too, in a certain way. He hadn’t been dead all that time.

Before the geas kicks back in, he asks: “What about you?”

“ _Was—_ what do you mean?” The crease is still there, and now Caleb’s turned fully to him. Molly chances a glance over at Nott, Beau and their captives, then at the path in front of them, just to make sure they’re not stepping anywhere that might look like a dangerous trap.

“You took an arrow to the gut,” says Molly. “Healing potions can do wonders, I certainly won’t deny that, but—it could’ve been tipped with poison. It could’ve been barbed, or worse.” After all, Molly’s pretty sure he’d have made it far worse— _no, he wouldn’t_ , what the fuck is he thinking? “I just—I worry for you. You’re not exactly the sturdiest of us right now.” He pauses, then adds, “No offense.”

“None taken, that is why I stay twenty feet away from fights,” says Caleb. “But I am fine. So long as no one thinks to target me, I will be all right. Besides, this is only reconnaissance, _ja_?”

Molly lifts an eyebrow. Then he jerks a thumb towards their captives, already bickering bitterly with Beau and Nott. Nott almost pulls her crossbow out again, with Beau’s staff gently tapping her side. Shit, Beau’s being the only thing that’s keeping Nott from shooting the two men they’ve essentially press-ganged.

“That is an anomaly that won’t happen again,” says Caleb, and Molly would’ve believed him if not for the brief wince. “And I mean it. What happened earlier—it will not happen again, I promise you that.”

 _What happened earlier was my fault,_ Molly’s pretty sure Caleb had been about to say. That seems to be something he does quite a lot, really, put the blame solidly on himself when things go to shit. Molly’d known about the habit for a while, but it’s only now that he knows the reason, knows what happened to break Caleb like this. He doesn’t think he’s ever met a man who carries his past on his shoulders, and Caleb’s not one of them, but he drags his past along like a ball and chain attached to his ankle. It’s easy to see now that he knows what to look for.

It’s a lot harder to try and assuage, like Molly wants to do. And it’s not as if he’s in any state to assuage anyone, right now.

Still. Can’t hurt to try. He rests a hand on Caleb’s shoulder, feels him startling at the touch. He rubs his thumb in circles, and gives him a small smile. _I don’t blame you,_ he wants to say, but the words don’t make it past his throat. _You’re better than you think you are. You’re better than you were._

Caleb smiles back at him, small and real. Then he looks away and says, “We need to hurry. Beauregard will not be pleased if we slow her and Nott down and leave her with our,” and his lips purse, “ _guides_.”

Molly chuckles, and walks forward, following in the tracks that Beau and Nott left behind. It’s not hard to track them down again, he just has to listen for Beau swearing intermittently, and sometimes Nott suggesting some truly unique solutions to their problems.

Eventually he spies them gingerly stepping around a pit in the ground, with Beau prodding the dwarf a little further in front of her. He steps around the pit too, and tries not to look at what might be inside it.

“Took you two long enough,” Beau grouses as Molly falls into step beside her. Nott walks ahead now, crossbow held ready, and Caleb takes her place near the half-elf. Conveniently, that keeps him in Molly’s view, and every so often Molly finds himself glancing over to him. Just to make sure he’s still alive, you see. “What were you doing, mooning over him?”

Molly stares at Beau, snorts out what he hopes is a convincing laugh, and shakes his head.

“Uh, _yeah,_ you were,” says Beau. “You were like, _oh, wow, Caleb, you’re super fucking hot._ ” She pauses, then sticks her tongue out in disgust. “Oh, fuck, I can’t believe I said that.”

Molly points at her throat, then at his own, and shakes his head. _You said it, not me._

“Hey, fuck you, I was imitating _you_ ,” says Beau, with a huff, poking his chest with a finger. “I’d say you look at him like you wanna drag him to bed and suck his soul out his dick, but it’s way more than that.” She makes a face, nose scrunching up as she speaks, and he’s missed this so much, missed her abrasive manner of speaking even though right now he can’t fathom _why_. “You look at him,” she pronounces, “like—like if he smiles that would make your whole day. Like if he jokes you’d actually start floating off the ground.”

She isn’t wrong. He kicks idly at a rock, watching it roll away and hit a root protruding from the ground. No one had ever said that it would feel like that—like every smile’s something to be treasured, because it’s so rare to see that it knocks Molly for a loop when he does see it. Or it had been, because he’s seen Caleb smile a little more now these days. At least when Astrid’s not being brought up. At least when the thing in Molly’s head isn’t the subject at hand.

He missed out on so much. Not just with Caleb, although that stings in a way Molly doesn’t really know how to define. He’s missed out on Yasha letting the rest of the group in under her walls, missed out on Beau trying to be a better person, on Fjord starting to grow into leadership and Jester growing up and Nott really, truly becoming a part of the group. He’s even missed out on this Caduceus fellow, the one who came in after Molly’d died, and there is so much that Molly has missed that he wonders, suddenly, if he can slot back into the same place he did. If he can even still fit there.

And then there’s Caleb, and isn’t that a complicated tangle of feelings all by itself. He thinks of Caleb, and he should probably feel trapped, should probably feel leashed or scared, because he _knows_ Caleb’s past and of the entire Nein, Caleb’s the only one who can reliably make him talk. Those two things in combination should logically scare the shit out of him.

He doesn’t, because, here’s the kicker, he trusts him. Simple as that. Complicated as that, may the Moonweaver help Mollymauk Tealeaf’s naive and trusting and young heart.

“I’m right, aren’t I,” says Beau, with a note of smug satisfaction.

Molly shoves her shoulder. Beau swears, and shoves back at him, harder than Molly did.

“That’s not a _no_!” she huffs.

Molly makes a cutting motion over his throat with his hand. It’s not like he can _say_ no, when he hasn’t been told to speak.

“Where’d your notebook go, anyway?” says Beau.

Molly pats a pocket in the cloak, then points up at the canopy and shakes his head. There’s not a lot of light here, and he’s not about to light something up just to have something to write by, even with darkvision.

“I get it, I get it,” she grumbles. “Don’t wanna write in the dark, can’t talk if Caleb’s not making you do it.” She glances at Caleb once more, then back at Molly and says, “You know it’s not super convenient, you mooning over him while he’s got you on a leash?”

He exhales, and almost instinctively, his hand drifts up to his neck. He would’ve ripped his own throat out just to get the collar off his neck, almost did, he remembers that. He shivers at the memory now, even as relieved as he is to feel nothing around his neck, and nods to Beau.

“He wouldn’t be the first one who had you on a leash,” says Beau, slowly, as if the pieces are falling into place in her head just now. “Would he?”

Somewhere in Molly’s ruined memory, someone says, _come on then,_ Jagdhund _, hunt the bastards down._ He—thinks they did, anyway. He’s sure he was told that. Just as he’s sure he did as commanded. Maybe. Probably. He thinks. He doesn’t know for sure, does he? What had Caleb said about what had been done to him? _He planted—memories, in my head, of that night._

Astrid’s planted memories in his head, that much Molly knows. The question is, how much of what he remembers is false?

Gods, what if she fucked with—with the parts that came before? He wouldn’t put it past her. She’s stuffed memories of, fuck, _Lucien_ into his head, what if she’d taken the opportunity to mess with the rest of it, how much of the circus did she fuck around with, how much of the Mighty Nein, _what if she knows_ —

“Molly? Molly? Oh, fuck me. _Guys._ ”

—can’t breathe can’t move something squeezes tight around his lungs and his heart claws at his throat and he squeezes his eyes shut can’t talk can’t move _can’t breathe_ —

“What’s going on?”

“Don’t fucking crowd him!”

“ _Scheiße_ , it’s happening again—”

“Seriously, what the fuck is going on—”

“Don’t you move! Nott, Caleb, keep an eye on them.”

A hand on his back. Twigs snapping like bone under his feet. A woman’s voice, not Zemnian, not even faintly accented with Zemnian, “Come on, obnoxious one. Come on, Molly. It’s just me. It’s Beau. Unpleasant one, remember? You know who you are? Nod if you do, come on, Mollymauk Tealeaf.”

He grabs blindly at the name. Yes, that’s him. He’s Mollymauk. _Molly to my friends._ He nods, trying to catch his breath.

“Okay, okay. Fuck _balls_ , you picked such a shitty time to have a panic attack, I have no idea what I’m doing. Okay, you can hear me, ‘s’good. What did Tubo do—right, I got this. I think.” A sigh, exasperated. “Come on, breathe with me. Follow my breathing, do what I’m doing now—inhale, one two three, exhale.”

He inhales. Holds. Exhales.

“That’s good. That’s good.” Someone pets his cheek, lightly, awkwardly. “Fuck, I really hope I’m doing this right. Inhale, one two three, exhale. Inhale, one two three, exhale. Keep going, keep doing it. You’re okay, Molly. You’re okay.”

Molly opens his eyes, the iron band around his lungs loosening just enough so he can breathe again. _Beau?_ he wants to say, wants to check if she’s okay, and when he opens his eyes he sees her watching him with a concerned look. He’s slumped against a tree, he realizes, and Beau is crouched in front of him, her hand on his shoulder.

“You alive?” she asks.

He nods, slowly.

“Great,” she says. “Good.” She pats his shoulder, a little stiffly. “What happened back there? I say anything that fucked you up?”

He shakes his head, then taps the base of his horn. His hand drifts down to his neck, mimes pulling a leash.

Beau’s face scrunches up, like she’s trying to work out what he means. “You shook your head, that means no,” she says, “but then you mimed a leash—that’s like, exactly what I said. How’s it not me?”

Molly sighs, then tugs his notebook out of the cloak’s pocket. He squints down at it, then, hoping for the best, writes, _it wasnt you I was thinking abot memorys and Caleb sayd he didnt remember things rigt becus some1 fucked w his head so may be its the same here_.

He passes it off to Beau, and looks down at his nails in the meantime. He should really trim them down, get a manicure. He knows he’s badly in need of a haircut, but now that he thinks about it the idea of someone holding a sharp object near his neck scares him now, more than it did before. And he does have to buy more clothes, even if he likes this dress.

Out of habit, his hand drops to the pocket with his cards. Or it drops to where that pocket would be, if he was wearing his coat. Right, he’d left his coat in the inn, because this had started out as a recon mission and they’d needed to be stealthy.

He misses it, suddenly, misses the familiar weight of it on his shoulders. This cloak just isn’t really his style as much as the coat is. Maybe next time they try anything stealthy he’ll wear it underneath, he can stand just a little bit of heat to keep his mind at ease.

“If she fucked with your head,” says Beau, squinting down at his words, “did she see anything?”

Molly bites his lip, thinking it over. Now that he isn’t having a panic attack, he can think clearly, even if he still feels like spun glass on the edge of a cliff. One move in the wrong direction and he’ll fall and shatter. Still—Modify Memory doesn’t _need_ the caster to know all the other memories, and as far as he knows, Astrid hadn’t cared enough to look at the rest. That’s what they’re relying on, in fact: that she only cared about Lucien and “justice” (revenge, more like) to look closer at _Molly_.

Gods, this might be the only time Molly actually ever feels thankful for that asshole. So long as Astrid’s attention is on _him_ , that keeps her away from Molly’s memories, the circus and the Nein.

He shakes his head.

Beau huffs out a breath, then presses the notebook back into his hands. He hasn’t had it very long, and already a weight falls off his shoulders when it’s back in his hands. It’s the closest thing he has to speaking freely, right now, and he puts it back safe and sound into a pocket.

“This shit is really fucked up,” she says. “You know that, right?”

Molly nods. He jerks a thumb back in Caleb’s general direction, then back at himself, and shakes his head.

“At least one of you has enough sense to know that,” says Beau, with a sigh. “Fuck, it’s not even fun anymore. I can’t argue with you when you’re like,” she flaps her hand at him, “ _that_. It makes me feel all weird and shitty, you can’t even talk back. And flipping people off can only take you so far.”

Molly rolls his eyes upwards. How does she think _he_ feels about it?

“You feel real shitty about it too, huh,” says Beau. “Good to know I’m not the only one.” She sits next to him now, head thudding against the bark. “Fuck, and here we were actively trying not to be shitty people anymore. ‘Cause you weren’t shitty, and you died, and that—we were trying to honor that, I guess. _I’m_ trying to honor that.”

Well, charades isn’t going to get his point across for this one. Molly takes his notebook out, and scribbles, _kind of was._

“Oh, don’t pull a Caleb on me,” Beau says, scowling at him. Molly snickers, and shakes his head again.

 _this isnt me filling in for Caleb were all shitty in some ways Bo,_ he writes. _some of us r shittyer than others but I think your under others now youre not doing as badly at this as you think Im very prod._

Beau looks down at the notebook, then looks up at him. It’s hard to read her eyes behind those goggles of hers, but he thinks it might’ve gotten through to her. Scratch that, he knows it did, she _actually smiles_. Briefly, and not that big, but it’s a real smile and if he could speak, he’d hold it over her head forever.

Quick as a flash it’s gone, and Beau hands the notebook back. “You are way too easy to please,” she says, full of bluster as per usual.

 _my standards fell resenly, they used to b ~~hyer~~ higher,_ he writes. He doesn’t write the rest of it: he couldn’t _have_ standards. Those had been less than convenient, for Astrid and Ikithon and their ilk’s purposes. You couldn’t have a weapon complaining about its bed, you needed it to be able to rest anywhere for just long enough to function.

He shivers a little.

Beau puts her hand on his shoulder, and pats, stiffly, awkwardly. He’s not surprised this is about all the comfort she can offer him, and if he’s being honest he wasn’t even expecting her to comfort him, but now they’re here and she’s patting his shoulder and it’s more than he’s had in a while, excepting these past few days. He leans against her touch, into her side.

She stiffens a little, and for a moment Molly’s patched-up heart cracks again. Maybe he’s overstepped her boundaries. He usually wouldn’t care about boundaries, but all he can think of suddenly is the way Nott’s shoulders slumped, her eyes glazing over as the charm took hold in her mind, looking so much like the other poor fucks in the same boat as Molly that he couldn’t bear to see it for a second longer. Beau is—for all that he’s enjoyed sniping at her and antagonizing her, he doesn’t want to actually hurt her in any way. He’s not that kind of asshole.

But Beau relaxes, tugs him closer so he’s resting his head against her shoulder. “Don’t poke me with your horn,” she grumbles, and Molly shifts around a little so his horn’s not prodding her cheek, or her shoulder. “You’re gonna owe me, you know. Like. A lot.”

Molly shakes his head, looking up at the canopy and searching for pinpricks of moonlight through the leaves.

“I talked to my ex for you,” Beau says. “I’m helping her get her shit back, so she’ll be generous enough to help you out. You owe me so fucking much.”

Molly glances at her, taps his fingers against his knee like he’s thinking. Then he mimes stabbing himself with an imaginary knife.

Beau stares at him. “Are you joking about your own death?” she asks. “Like, the _fuck_.”

 _if I cant jok abot it then Ill probably hav another panic atack abot it insted,_ Molly writes, pushing off of Beau. _let me cop Bo anyway theres no way u could top dying for u._

“On the one hand, that is so goddamn fucked up that you’re being funny about it and making it a contest,” says Beau. Then she narrows her eyes at him in a glare. “On the other hand, _fuck you_ , I could top it. You don’t know that for sure.”

Molly snorts out a derisive laugh, and writes, _fine but 1 condishon: w/out dying to thats cheeting._ That he has to specify _not dying_ says a lot about them, he thinks. Either that, or it says something about how he’s coping.

But at least this is familiar ground: bickering with Beau, even if the bickering sounds more or less one-sided. He’s always known what their relationship is, and—all right, it’s seen a lot of upheaval too since he went away, but at least this part hasn’t changed.

“ _Fine,_ ” says Beau, vehement as she stands up. “I’m gonna get one up on you, just you fucking watch me.”

 _I look forward to it,_ he writes, but she’s already stomped off back to the rest. He smiles, then gets to his feet to follow her back to the others.

\--

There’s a beaded curtain off to the side of the game room that Ronwell steps through. “Come on in, then,” he says, and Fjord steps through after him. He doesn’t trust the guy further than he can throw him, but he can summon his falchion into his hand if necessary. He’ll be fine, he’s sure. They’ll be fine. They’re going to be fine. They have to be fine.

It hasn’t escaped his notice that it’s Jester and Yasha at his back, the same people he failed when the Shepherds took them. He is fine, he _is_ , he just needs to be more careful, this time. Better as a leader. And he is better now. At least he hopes so. There are people depending on him to be better, Jester and Yasha are depending on him to be better, _Molly_ is depending on him.

And isn’t Molly still a kick in the heart even now.

“There he is,” says Ronwell, stepping aside so the three of them can stare, horrified, at Ghavnos’ broken body lying on the table. He’s bruised and bloodied, an arm bent at an angle that looks _wrong_ , and patched up about as well as one would expect in a place like this. Which is _not that well_.

Jester gives a soft, horrified gasp. Yasha’s lips press into a thin line.

“What happened to him?” Fjord asks.

“Rattlesnake happened,” says Ronwell, fury simmering under his skin. His fingers clench into a fist. “And that just won’t do. We’re gonna go after him, show him what dogs do to them folks that break their word.” His eyes slide toward Fjord, untrusting, suspicious.

Yeah, Fjord knows that look all too well. Most of the time he’d meet it with a smile, but now is not the time for that, so he gives the man a respectful nod instead. He looks back at the body— _not_ a body, he realizes, because Ghavnos’ chest is rising and falling, slowly, surely. “He’s still alive?” he asks.

“Not for long,” says Ronwell. “Bastard had his guards beat him up good, teach him a lesson or some shit. The only one we got here with any idea of anatomy says he ain’t got much time left.” He looks down at Ghavnos, and for the first time since Fjord, Jester and Yasha stepped into his sanctuary, Fjord sees Ronwell’s face go soft.

Oh. He cares about this guy.

A lot more, Fjord thinks, than a boss might care for a subordinate. A lot more than friends care for each other.

“I can give him time,” says Jester.

“What?” Ronwell says, looking up to her with wide eyes.

“I’m a _cleric_ ,” says Jester, wiggling her fingers. Sparkles of divine magic dance around them. “I can heal him. I’ve still got some spells left.”

“You—can do that?” says Ronwell, straightening up. “What’s the catch?”

“Information,” says Fjord.

“Back off of Lestra,” says Yasha. “And information.”

“Oh, _her_ ,” says Ronwell. For a moment he seems to be debating with himself, but then Ghavnos gives a soft little moan, and Ronwell looks down and squeezes his uninjured hand tight. “You’re gonna be fine, you numbskull,” he murmurs. “Gonna make sure you’re okay again. My sister’d kill me if I don’t.”

“Hi, can you please move away so I can work?” says Jester. Ronwell nods, then steps away, and Fjord steps between him and Jester. Just in case. Just in case. He looks at Yasha, who’s got her fingers around the hilt of her sword too, and they exchange a nod of understanding. If anything bad goes down, the first thing they’re doing is getting Jester out of the line of fire, fast. If they need to cut their way out of here, then so be it.

But Fjord very much hopes they won’t need to cut their way out.

Jester leans down over Ghavnos’ prone form. She murmurs something into his ear that Fjord doesn’t quite catch, before her finger prods at his broken nose. Ghavnos gives a pained moan, but Jester’s prod sets it back into place with a cracking noise, and from there Fjord sees the divine magic taking effect. The glow flows from Jester’s finger, down to Ghavnos’ nose, down his body, knitting him back together. Broken bones snap back into place with a sickening but familiar creak- _snap_ , gaping wounds close until they’re just sluggishly bleeding or even scabbed over.

Ghavnos, with a ragged gasp, opens his eyes. They’re a warm brown, like Fjord’s had been before the explosion on Vandrin’s ship, but that’s the only feature they have, or used to have, in common. “Who th’ _fuck_ ,” he starts to say.

“Ghavnos!” says Fjord, pushing forward, remembering the lie they fed Ronwell. “Hey, it’s us—you remember us, right? Fjord, Fiona, Yasha? The graveyard kids?”

Ghavnos stares at them a moment, uncomprehending, before realization dawns. His eyes flick to Jester, and recognition flashes across his eyes. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, think I remember you. From the graveyard. Yeah.”

Fjord sighs, relaxing.

“Where’s y’purple friend?” Ghavnos continues, voice slurring somewhat, and Fjord’s blood runs cold. Dammit. _Dammit,_ they hadn’t mentioned Molly to Ronwell, and Fjord can see the way the man narrows his eyes at the three of them, like he smells a rat or something. “With all’em tattoos?”

Yasha’s lips press into a thin line. “He’s not here,” she says, curtly. “Hey. You okay?”

“Never better,” says Ghavnos, pushing himself up to a sitting position. “He a tourist, this buddy of yours? Ain’t seen him ‘round you, before.”

“He’s new,” says Jester.

“Something like that,” says Yasha, her mismatched eyes flicking to the side, like she’s looking for someone. Like she’s looking for Molly. Then she looks back at Ghavnos and purses her lips. “We need to talk,” she says, as intense as ever.

“Sure, anythin’ for some good ol’ _friends_ ,” says Ghavnos, falsely casual, grinning too widely and showing all his teeth, the chipped tusk and the sharp look in his eyes. Fjord’s the smooth liar here and even he can’t help but wince at the sheer falseness of Ghavnos’ cheer. “Whaddaya need?”

“They need info and us backing off Lestra,” says Ronwell.

“That bitch?” says Ghavnos.

“Yeah, her,” says Ronwell. “We’re gonna do that anyway, since Rattlesnake broke the deal. Why should we hold up our end?” He spits. “These _friends_ of yours—can you vouch for ‘em?”

“Uh,” says Ghavnos. “That. That ‘pends, I guess. What kinda information do y’guys want?”

“Funny you should mention Rattlesnake,” says Fjord, “because we’re thinking of hitting up a shipment or two of his.”

Just like that, both Ronwell and Ghavnos straighten up, their eyes flicking to each other. Fjord sees what he hopes is an understanding passing between the both of them, in slight nods and little shrugs. Ghavnos shakes his head, hisses in pain, and Ronwell gently squeezes his uninjured shoulder. It’s strange to see, coming from someone who just moments ago was doing his damnedest to intimidate the three of them.

“You got _balls_ for tourists, that’s for sure,” Ronwell says.

Yasha frowns, and says, “I don’t— _have_ any balls right now, but I know someone with a lot of ball bearings.”

“Not what he meant, Yasha,” says Fjord, as Jester melts into giggles. “But we need information on Rattlesnake. We got some already, from another friend who lives ‘round here, but you’ve got a perspective they don’t.” He folds his arms across his chest, looks Ronwell dead in the eyes, and says, “So whaddaya say? We’ll hit him, and while he’s still reeling from that, you can make your move, but first we need to know what he’s like from people who’ve worked closely with him.”

“Tempting,” says Ronwell. “How do we know you won’t break the deal, though?”

“‘M’vouchin’ for ‘em and _she_ healed my ass,” Ghavnos huffs, sending Jester a thumbs-up. She puts both her thumbs up in response, grinning brightly at him. “That ain’t enough, Ronnie?”

“Bunch of us vouched for Rattlesnake too and look what’s happened,” says Ronwell. “No, I wanna know what you all are willing to do to prove you’re honest folk. Or, hell, not even honest folk, just not oathbreakers like some fucking people.” He glances out the doorway with narrowed eyes, lips thinning in displeasure.

Ghavnos says, looking at the three of them with a canny look that Fjord’s not quite fond of, “Well. There’s one thing they and their buddies could do.”


	26. hide underneath me and come out at night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Gregory & the Hawk's "Boats and Birds".

Six sprung traps and a trail of Changebringer’s symbols later, the smugglers that Beau’s prodding along stop the four of them in their tracks. Beau keeps her feet, on the path sloping upward to the stone entrance, with a snake carved onto the stone, but behind her someone skids a little and lets out a soft Zemnian curse. She looks up at the stone archway, the etched letters worn by time, and notes the script to herself. Infernal, she thinks. Not a language that she knows, but Molly and Jester might be able to help. “Here’s the entrance,” says the half-elf. “Now will you let us go? Please?”

“Shoulda brought one of ‘em Crownsguard with us, or we wouldn’t be in this mess,” the dwarf mutters, kicking at a rock. It tumbles down the slope, coming to rest at Molly’s feet.

Beau shrugs, and says, “Sure, fine. But first—Caleb? Do your thing.”

Caleb clambers up the slope, panting wildly. “Beau, Mollymauk, Nott, you may want to look away,” he says, hands already making some kind of arcane gesture. Beau could swear his fingers are glowing as he traces symbols in the air, but she looks away as asked, to the stone entrance and the carved snake. Then she hears him say, “You did not see us. You never saw us. You only saw a few other smugglers, some half-elves and a halfling, and overpowered them quickly, but at great cost. One of them fled through the woods, and set off all the traps—you know this because you heard her screams. You came here, came inside, but the package you had hoped to smuggle had already been stolen, and so you came back out here.”

Beau shivers, a little, at the magic pushed into the words. It’s not directed to her, so she’s not in any danger of remembering things that way, but she can feel the magic brushing over her skin anyway. Like a paintbrush covered in oil.

Another breath, and the sound of ropes being cut through with a knife. Then Caleb says, again, “So now I _suggest_ that you both go on your way, and forget about us, _ja?_ ”

No noise, but after a moment Beau hears the sound of footsteps walking away, a distant bickering. “You can turn around now,” says Caleb, and Beau turns to see that the smugglers have gone, and Caleb is wiping honey off his hand and onto his coat. “Are we going inside?”

“Not yet,” says Beau. “Let’s just go around the place, see what we can see about it and the patrols. I don’t wanna get in there already, we still got plenty of time, and we did just come here to do some recon.”

“I don’t wanna get in there right now either,” says Nott, her tone brooking no argument. “We don’t have a healer, and if we run into anyone in there we’re gonna get into a big fight, and we only _just_ got Molly back.”

Molly nods, but his eyes dart over to Caleb, and he shivers and looks away, a faint crease between his eyebrows. Caleb seems to notice, and fuck, if he doesn’t look so weirdly broken when he realizes. But Beau sees him swallow his hurt, like always, and say, “I suppose that means that we are to check the perimeter, then?”

“Yeah, and you’re on lookout,” says Beau. “You’re the one with the stupidly good memory, you memorize the important shit.”

“I’ll keep an eye on Caleb!” says Nott, cocking her crossbow. “And keep an eye out for traps. Again.”

“Me and Molly’ll take up the rear,” says Beau. “And I’ll finally enjoy a little bit of peace and quiet.”

Molly, in answer, flips her off, but doesn’t protest otherwise, keeping his distance from Caleb. He falls in step beside her as they walk a short distance away from the other two, not a lot more than maybe ten or so feet, and with him this close she can practically feel the nervousness rolling off him in waves.

“You didn’t like that, huh,” she says, quiet, keeping an eye on their surroundings. The warehouse is a large stone building, its outer walls made of grey stone, obvious now that they’re right beside it, but it barely peeks above the pine trees. She looks up, but there’s no one peeking down at them from the very tops, pointing arrows at their heads. “Caleb modifying somebody’s memory, just like that.” She snaps her fingers.

Molly flinches, a little, but after a moment sighs and shakes his head.

“Didn’t seem to mind some stuff earlier,” she says.

Molly chews on his bottom lip, and shakes his head. Then he tugs his notebook and pencil out with a sigh and starts to scribble. Beau glances up again, and, assured that no one’s going to rain arrows down on the four of them, rests her hand on Molly’s elbow to keep him walking while he writes.

He shoves the notebook at her, and tugs her along so she can read as they walk: _I dont mind but you didnt see what they lookd ~~lyk~~ like when they walkd awey youve seen me when Im not me remember?_

“Uh, yeah, a little bit,” says Beau, putting the notebook back into his hands. “But you’re fast as fuck. They were just, like, ambling along, y’know, like they didn’t know where they were going.”

Molly nods. He scribbles again in his notebook. _yeah in a fyht but I meant just moving they movd like I did and like a lot of peepl like me did and it scard me to see but it was nesesary so we cud do this I just cant get it out of my head._ He practically stabs the paper with his pencil, before giving it to Beau with shaky hands.

Beau swallows, the magnitude of the shit they’ve found themselves in sinking into her head. More than that, so does the magnitude of what kind of shit Molly’s been through. And for what? Some fucking asshole’s vendetta? To fill out the ranks for their creepy-ass puppet army or something? “Fuck,” she says. “Great.”

 _Ill get over it w/ time,_ Molly writes.

“If there’s anything I’ve learned from the fact that you almost killed me at least twice over the past few days,” says Beau, earning herself a glare, “it’s that you are doing a fucking terrible job at getting over it.”

Molly looks away from her, folding his arms over his chest, holding his notebook close. Even in the darkness she can see him opening his mouth, like he wants to argue with her, before shutting it again and glaring off at nothing. He kicks at a pebble, and it sails through the air, bouncing off a wall.

“Seriously, it’s bad,” Beau says. “Listen, I’m fine with how you think about this whole past thing. You don’t wanna know shit about your past, you don’t wanna think about your recent past, and I respect that.” She sighs. “Least I would if it didn’t affect you like this. But it is, and while I’m a big fan of not thinking about shit, sometimes shit _makes_ you think about it anyway, and that’s the point where you just have to look at it and throw it out ‘cause it stinks so much.”

 _Im doing a great job but ok o wys but unplesant monk how do you propos I deal w/ it,_ Molly writes.

“First of all, fuck you, you’re an obnoxious asshole,” says Beau, with no real heat behind it. “Second, say or write something about how it sucks for you ‘cause of, like, your trauma or some shit. I guarantee, he’ll listen to that. Probably.”

_probably dosent sound good._

“Chances are good he’ll listen, because it’s you and he feels guilty,” Beau amends. “But just in case, milk the whole ‘recently dead and then brainwashed’ thing, just to make sure.”

 _yeah yeah ok._ He moves to put his notebook away in his coat, then pauses. _u sed u wanted to onor me and you wer trying to be beter._

Is this a trick question or something? Beau narrows her eyes, and says, “Yeah. Why?”

 _I think youre already good and was starting to think that way befor the sheperds,_ he writes. _dont tell any1 I said that._

“Starting to?” huffs Beau.

_we helpd som kids get their parents back we did prety good and you did kick that otomatons ass._

“Yeah, and then it almost killed me.”

 _so do lots of things,_ Molly writes, and Beau tugs him out of the way of a rock while he does so. It has the side effect of jostling his writing hand, and he pouts at her. Asshole. She can’t believe she missed him so much.

“Fine, I’ll let you trip next time, see how you like it,” Beau says.

 _you wudnt Ive been noting but nise to you,_ is the answering scrawl, and Beau can’t resist rolling her eyes at him. _and I wasnt don erlyer I was going to say that if I cud I wud ~~taek~~ take the next thing that almost kills u insted for u becaus ur my frend and a good person I dont want you dead._

Beau stops in her tracks. Looks up at Molly, at his red eyes, his vaguely amused smile, the stupid look on his face like he thinks he won something. Unwillingly, another image surfaces in her mind: Molly, on the ground, unseeing eyes staring up at the sky, blood on his lips. He’d died for her. She hadn’t asked him to, but he’d done it and here they fucking are, and she wonders morbidly what might’ve happened if he hadn’t stepped in to save her. Would she be the one with a wizard fucking around in her head?

Nah. Nah, she doesn’t think so. Molly’s the one with the tie to Astrid here. Beau’d be lucky, if their places were swapped, she’d just be dead in the ground.

Neither scenario sounds all that great. This is probably the best scenario for both of them, because Beau doesn’t want to die, and at least Molly’s here. Fucked up as hell, but here and alive and not cold in the ground.

And isn’t that pretty fucked up too.

“I don’t want you dead either,” she says. “Yeah, I know, fucking weird coming from me, but you dying sucked. I was just starting to _like_ you. And, fuck, I dunno, you were really the best of us non-kidnapped shitheads.” She rocks onto her heels, looks at him, _really_ looks at him. Even as fucked up as he is now, even as annoying as he is, he’s still good. An irreverent asshole, yeah, but the kind who’d still flip more gold coins than a shitty drink should have, just because the bartender looked tired.

 _Im flaterd,_ Molly writes. _thats not reely a high bar to clear tho Bo and onesly Id do it agen._

“Yeah, no,” says Beau, folding her arms and shaking her head. “No. Not happening again. I’m not gonna let it.”

_counting on it remember the deal._

Yeah, she knows. “No dying, for either of us,” she says. “You die, I’m raising your ass from the dead again to punch you in the dick, I don’t care what Jester or Caleb say about it.”

_wat??_

“And if I die,” Beau continues, “you got full permission to raise me from the dead and yell at me.”

_I dont get to punch you?_

“I’d punch you back,” says Beau. “And trust me, I punch way harder than you do.”

Molly chews on his lower lip, like he’s seriously thinking this over. For a moment she wonders if it’s gotten through, somehow, or if he’s going to do something dumb like insist that her life is worth more than his. Considering what kind of fucked-up bullshit’s been crammed into his head, she wouldn’t be surprised if that came out of his mouth, or—well, came out of his pencil. Instead he writes, _ok deal I get to mok u._

“ _Hey_ ,” she huffs, glancing away. Caleb and Nott have vanished from sight, and for a moment she worries if they’re all right, before Nott’s voice echoes in her ear:

_Beau! Are you and Molly still alive? He didn’t flip out and kill you, did he? You can reply to this message!_

“Yeah, yeah, Nott, we’re fine,” says Beau. “Molly’s still Molly, we just got distracted talking about shit. You guys find anything?”

_A couple of traps that we left alone, so avoid those. Also, there’s three guards walking around, so be careful. You can reply to this message._

“Yeah, you too, Nott,” Beau says, glancing around. She doesn’t see any guards roaming around, or any above them cocking crossbows and aiming at them, so they can keep walking for a few more minutes, but she looks at Molly too. “You see anyone around?” she asks.

Molly turns in place, even looks upward, then shakes his head. Not a thing from him either, and he’s got better darkvision than she does. Which she’ll never admit. His ego’s big enough and she’s already done enough to inflate it.

“Think we should stick to the bushes,” Beau says.

Molly nods, and they walk off the well-worn trail and into the bushes. It goes better than the last time, at least, their footsteps muffled and light, and Beau manages to avoid tripping over a rock and falling flat on her ass, a la Caleb. Which, thanks, Caleb, for the ribbing material.

After a moment, Molly glances at her, then pulls his notebook out and writes, _catch me up?_

“Yeah, sure,” says Beau. “What do you wanna know about? ‘S’a lot.”

 _this cadusses felo to start with,_ Molly writes. _you talkd about him befor but I want mor detale are we going to meet up w/ him after this becus he sounds like fun._

“Yeah, he’s just enjoying his vacation from us,” says Beau. “It’s like, the first vacation he’s ever had. I bet he’s probably getting high in his graveyard with his sister or something. Y’know, there was this one time we had to deal with a bunch of giants, on the way to Nicodranas…”

\--

“Do you trust Mollymauk?” says Nott, as she and Caleb trudge forward through the bushes and the trees, close to the worn path winding around the warehouse. So far, they’ve had to duck around four traps, and Nott’s accidentally triggered one that shot an arrow at her. Fortunately, the only thing she’s got from that little escapade is a bruised elbow.

Caleb pauses in his steps, and blinks down at her. “Why do you ask?” he says.

“I just want to know,” she says.

Caleb frowns, a little. “I trust him as much as I trust everyone else in the Nein,” he says, and she feels pride swelling in her chest. That’s _her boy_ , who’s come so far since she first met him in that prison cell so long ago. “Do you not?”

Some time ago she would’ve said she didn’t trust him. Someone so flashy and colorful, no doubt he’s hiding something big, and Nott would’ve wanted to drag it out of him somehow, so she would know for _sure_ if he would pose a danger to her and to Caleb.

“I trust him,” she says now. Funny how things work, funny how she trusts Mollymauk more now that he’s got something in his head that makes him dangerous. Funny. She’d laugh, if she didn’t also know what got him into this mess, what got them all into this mess. Her fingers twitch towards her flask, as the letter’s contents swim back up to the forefront of her mind. “I just—I’m worried, a little. About you. And this Astrid lady.”

Caleb exhales, pulls his coat tighter around himself, as if to ward off a sudden chill. “One thing at a time, Nott,” he says. “Astrid can keep. She has kept for more than ten years, she can keep for another year.”

“Do you really think that?” Nott asks. “What if she decides looking for Molly’s important?”

“She will,” says Caleb, “but she does not know where he is, and will not for a while yet, I hope.”

“And what happens when she does find out?” Nott asks, jumping over a log. Caleb, being very tall, steps over it instead. “What are you going to do then?”

Caleb lets out a breath, rubs a hand over the elbow of his coat, painstakingly patched up with bright pink from Jester. “I will find out when that happens, I suppose,” he says. “But I do not doubt it will not be a pleasant experience for me. Or for her. Encountering a former friend can be—awkward, at best.”

Nott kicks a small tower of pebbles over, watching them scatter. “Do you think you could talk sense into her?” she asks, but even to her, her voice sounds hopeless and tired. “You were her friend. That counts for something, for humans.”

“I was,” says Caleb. “She was. But she is far past the point of my being able to talk sense into her.” He sighs. “I think we were pushing past that point already, before I broke,” he says, voice low, like a confession. “She was ambitious. So was I. We all were to some degree, but the two of us were the worst. Eodwulf was our stabilizing influence, but as time wore on, even he—”

He cuts off, stopping in his tracks, and Nott turns to see him sitting down on a log. For a moment she tenses, wondering if something’s gone wrong, if she needs to call for Beau and Molly’s help, but all that happens is that Caleb breathes out slow, fingers pulling at the frayed hems of his coat.

“Caleb?” she asks.

“I cannot protect you, or anyone, if either Astrid or Eodwulf turn their interest on us,” says Caleb, and the words wrap a tight band of fear and worry around Nott’s heart. This is her boy, this is her bright and shining boy. “More than they already have, and we are fortunate beyond belief that Astrid has not realized we have Mollymauk just yet.”

“So we just have to keep stretching that good luck,” says Nott.

“How long until it snaps?” says Caleb. “Nott, if—if they ever turn their attention to us, you need to run. You have not done anything to draw their ire, so long as you keep ahead of them, you should be safe.” He huffs out a quiet, half-hysterical laugh, and says, “I will be fine.”

Nott stares up at him, gulps, and says, “Would—Would drawing their ire include, um. Sending them a letter pretending you were, ah, of a. An obscure royal lineage?”

Caleb frowns, his eyebrows knitting together. Oh, no. Oh, _no_. Nott reaches for her flask and unscrews the cap, as Caleb says, in tones of dawning horror, “Nott, _was hast du gemacht?_ ”

“Uh, what,” says Nott, weakly. Oh, _no_ , he’s slipped into Zemnian, this demands a long drink.

“What did you _do?_ ” says Caleb, a hand scraping his hair back from his face. “If you drew Astrid’s attention to you in any way—”

“I did my best not to!” says Nott. “I just wrote her a letter, pretending to be an attorney for a royal heir of a town that I made up on the spot. I wasn’t going to do anything more than that, I just wanted to see what she was like.”

“She _killed her parents_ , she did not break, is that not enough?” Caleb’s voice is verging on the edge of hysteria, and Nott creeps forward, her hand tentatively stretching out to brush against his shoulder. Caleb flinches away, and that—that’s a rusted knife in her gut, twisting this way and that. “If she finds out who sent her the letter, she will _kill you_ , if not do far worse to you like she did to Mollymauk. And that depends on her mood.”

“She doesn’t _know_!” says Nott, seizing on the one thing she can be sure of. “I made sure there was nothing in it that could tie you to me, as far as she knows it was sent from the Pillow Trove, and she didn’t even get a response to me the last few times we were in Zadash.” She unscrews the cap off her flask, hands shaking, and tips the contents into her mouth.

“She could just be biding her time,” says Caleb, wringing his hands, and a lead weight drops abruptly into Nott’s stomach. She drops to her knees, scenarios whirling through her head like a spinning toy gone wildly out of control: a wizard woman with a shifting face, burning up her friends and family, or worse—saying a word that makes _both_ Molly and Caleb go horribly, terribly blank, before moving like marionettes on strings.

Caleb gets up, lets out a long, slow breath. He keeps running his hands through his hair, pulling at his bandages, fiddling with the hems of his sleeves. “If you stay here everyone else will be able to protect you,” he says, starting to pace, “she will not care about you. I can leave, draw her attention away from you and Mollymauk, and if I do not come back as myself—”

“What do you _mean_ you have to _leave?_ ” says Nott.

“I do not want you to get hurt!” Caleb near-shouts, whipping around with wide, wild eyes. Manic eyes, she realizes suddenly, the sort he hadn’t had in a very long time. “You or Mollymauk, or anyone else, not by Astrid’s hands, and she _will_ come and find and _hurt_ you and I cannot let her do that, not to you, you are my best friend, _du bist mein Schwester, du bist alle meine familie, Molly hast nur drei Tage frei von ihrere Macht und ich kann sie nicht ihn zuruck haben gelassen_ —”

“Caleb,” says Nott, helplessly, reaching out to grab at his hand, “Caleb, you’re spiraling, _Caleb_ —”

“Hey, what’s all the Zemnian ranting about?” Beau says, and both Nott and Caleb spin on their heels to see her and Molly trudging through the bush. “Thought we agreed not to do that, ‘cause of Molly’s...well, whatever.” She twirls her finger around her ear, and Molly gives an exaggeratedly exasperated sigh and shoves lightly at her shoulder.

“I did something a little bit fucked up,” says Nott, voice sounding hoarse and strangled even to her. She takes another sip from her flask. “But I swear, Molly, I didn’t know she had you, I didn’t even _know_ anything about her other than what Caleb told me—”

“What?” says Beau. “Okay, back up, Nott, what the hell is going on here? What did you fuck up?”

Nott tips her flask back, the alcohol flowing down her throat like sweet, sweet water. Unlike water, though, a haze settles over her frantic thoughts, slowing them down so she can sort through them. “I wanted to talk to someone who might be able to help Caleb, and I decided to just sort of poke Astrid, a little bit,” she confesses. “I sent her a letter. I didn’t use any real names! I didn’t even tell her anything, I made up a—a law firm, for a royal heir of a province called Nigeria that doesn’t exist.”

Molly sits down, eyes wide and terrified and fixed on something Nott can’t see, not even when she turns just to check.

“Shit,” says Beau, succinctly. She turns to Molly and says, “Did she say anything to you about Nigeria?”

Molly shakes his head, but tugs his notebook out of his cloak. He chews on his lip thoughtfully, writes something down, the scratching of his pencil on paper the only sound in the wood, then passes it off to Beau to read. He tugs the cloak closer around himself, relaxing a little more.

She shuts the notebook closed, then passes it back to Molly. “Good news, if Astrid read it, she totally threw it away,” she says. “Molly says she throws out all the letters she gets that’s not relevant to her job or from her colleagues. If some rando wrote her a letter from a province that doesn’t even exist, it’s probably in the trash.”

“You don’t know that for certain,” says Caleb. “You don’t know her.”

Molly points at himself.

“I think he means he knows her too,” Nott translates, and something unknots in her gut. She’s not sure if that’s the alcohol’s fault, or Molly trying to be reassuring while he can’t talk. “So. So you don’t have to leave. Yet.” Besides, if Caleb leaves, Nott knows for certain that she’d go with him. Someone has to, because Caleb can’t be left alone, to stew in his thoughts and self-hatred.

“Were you thinking about leaving?” says Beau.

Caleb lets out a long, slow breath. “It would be the safest option,” he says, “if Astrid finds out before we are ready to face her. I can draw her away, I am a far better prize—”

Molly shakes his head, and stands up. He strides over to Caleb and tugs at his sleeve, guiding him to sit down on a log. Then he crooks his fingers at Nott, a clear invitation for her to come over.

“What, I’m not invited?” huffs Beau.

Molly snorts, in answer, and pats the space next to him. It’s not exactly prime real estate, with the crumbling state of the log, but if it can take Molly and Caleb, it can probably take one little goblin girl and one lean human monk. Nott hops up next to Caleb, as Molly starts writing in his notebook again, and Beau, after a moment, sighs and drops unceremoniously next to Molly. There’s a creak in the log, and for a moment Nott tenses, ready to jump off, but the thing holds.

She leans over, to read what Molly’s written out: _Shed care about ford or Jester or Yasha or me mor than you ford can eat swords jester has the traveler Yasha is Shorhasyan Im her investment and you probably dont look like the boy she knew._

“So that’s easily half of us she’d want under her thumb, even without you around,” says Beau.

“We’re better together,” says Nott. “All of us.” She loves them all, she knows that, she’s known since even before the Shepherds threw that love into stark relief. They’re her family. “We’ll be at your back, if Astrid decides to come after you after all. _I’ll_ be at your side, always.” She breathes out slow, and tucks her hair behind her ears. “And ‘m’sorry about my part. I thought, I really thought she could help. I didn’t know what she was doing to Molly.”

 _literaly no1 did,_ Molly writes. _not yor burden Not you had no part she probably didnt cair very much about it if she hasnt even tryd to folow up in 7 moons._ He taps the blunt end of his pencil against his lower lip, then adds, _also Id feel beter about my chanses in a worst- ~~cays~~ cas scenario with you around Caleb._

Caleb doesn’t say anything, but his eyes are fixed on Molly, and Nott—ah, fuck, this again, really? She loves her boy, and she cares about Molly, but their romantic choices are fucking weird at _best_. At worst—well, she doesn’t want to know what that looks like, Caleb’s romantic choices are questionable enough already.

“Well,” says Caleb, softly, his eyes on Molly, “I suppose you are not wrong.”

 _Im never rong,_ Molly writes. It takes Nott a minute to decipher his handwriting, because the letters run together while he’s looking elsewhere. Like, say, Caleb.

“Also, just pointing out,” says Beau, “but if you leave while Molly’s still fucked up, he’s not gonna be able to talk to anyone worth a damn. So, you know, if you leave, you’re not gonna make things all that safer for him or Nott.”

“She’s not wrong,” says Nott. “You’re the best wizard I know.”

Molly writes something down, tips his notebook towards Nott: _hes the only 1 you kno._

“Shut _up_ ,” Nott grumbles, “he’s still the best.”

Caleb gives a slightly wet-sounding laugh, then nods. “I will not leave,” he says, and the words finally, finally ease something that’s gone tight and worried in Nott’s heart. “We are—We are all friends, _ja_? So I will always have your backs, since you have mine. I may not always agree with your actions, but I can promise I will stand at your side.” To punctuate his point, he reaches up to ruffle Nott’s hair.

“Oh, not _again_ ,” Nott huffs, but she lets it happen anyway. “And, um, Caleb, I am really, _really_ sorry. I only ever wanted to help you.”

“I know,” says Caleb. “I do not deserve a friend like you.”

 _Its not a qwestyon of deserv,_ Molly writes. _Its about what u beleev and she beleevs in you so._

“It’s never been about _deserve_ ,” says Nott, taking Caleb’s hand. “I care about you. I want you safe, and I want to see you succeed in everything you do. I don’t want you to get hurt, especially not because I made a horrible mistake.”

“I do not want to see you hurt either, Nott,” says Caleb. “Not because of my past.”

“You know she can dodge whatever your past throws at her, right?” says Beau. “I’ve seen her duck fireballs with barely a singed hair. She can take an angry wizard.” She pauses, then adds, “Honestly, so can the rest of us. Except Molly, but I think that’s only ‘cause it’s _his_ past biting him on the ass too.”

 _cud stil take an angry wizard,_ Molly writes. _speeking of as-biting tho we need to get moving and finish this or the gards will find and kick our asses._

“Ye of little faith, we’d kick their ass first,” Beau grumbles.

“No, I think Mollymauk is right, we are not at a hundred percent,” says Caleb. “The guards would be able to catch us with our pants down. We need to get moving.”

“I’ll keep a lookout for traps,” says Nott, hopping down off the log. Relief crashes down on her—for now, they’re safe, and her mistake hasn’t cost them everything. She hopes it doesn’t come back to bite them on the ass ever.

It’s a pipe dream, but she’ll cling to it for as long as she can.


	27. walk with me like lovers do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Celine Dion's "Taking Chances". song in text is from Harry James and Helen Forrest's "[It's Been A Long, Long Time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYvONFHI2xw)". if you recognize that song, yes, it's from the soundtrack for Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

They finish their walkabout without any further incident. Thank fucking god for that, because between the panic attacks and the revelation about Nott’s little letter, Molly doesn’t think he can hold it together through yet another incident. His smile’s cracked as it is, a mask made of porcelain on the verge of shattering. It’s been a long and somewhat trying day. Week. Year.

It’s been a long _period of time_ , okay.

He’s on the verge of collapsing by the time they make it back to their inn, barely managing to muster up the energy to even flinch when Jester hugs him. But he pats her on the back anyway, leaning a little against her for support.

“Hey, Molly,” she says, “we need to talk about a thing that we kinda sorta said we’d think about doing maybe—”

Molly pats lightly at her shoulder, and she steps away as Beau walks past them, grabbing hold of Yasha and Fjord to start chatting lightly to them about what she’s found. He traces the shape of a bed in the air, then mimes resting his head upon a pillow, his cheek brushing against the back of his knuckles.

“Oh, okay, you’re tired,” she says, sympathetic. “I’m tired too. I’m almost out of spells.”

Then Caleb walks inside while talking to Nott, shaking dust and dirt off his coat. As far as Molly knows, they’re trying to work _something_ out regarding the whole Astrid thing that doesn’t entail Caleb packing up and leaving. Good, because Molly doesn’t really want him to leave, both for practical reasons and for— _personal_ reasons, is how Molly is going to phrase it. _I’m in love with you and if you left I would not be happy,_ is very personal.

He looks back at Jester, and sees the grin on her face.

“You’re gonna sleep with him again,” she says. It’s not a question, just a statement of fact.

Molly lets out a sigh, and nods.

“You’ll get him!” Jester chirps, patting his shoulder. “We’ll talk about everything else in the morning and I’ll do a Remove Curse.”

Thank the gods for that. Molly leans down a little to drop a brief, chaste kiss to the top of Jester’s head, careful to avoid her horns. She laughs, and flounces away, joined by Nott and then Beau as she heads up the stairs. Yasha gives Molly a tired smile, before she follows after her.

Fjord walks up to Molly, gently claps his hand on his shoulder, and says, “We might be getting a lot more involved in Lynbroke’s crap than we originally planned.”

Molly lets out a long, slow sigh. Of course they are. He really should’ve expected something like that, they always seem to get tangled up in complicated webs, strung up long before they walked into town. He turns his head to give Fjord a flat, unimpressed look.

“We won’t if you don’t want to,” says Fjord. “I’m not exactly a big fan of those Dogs of Hell either, but you gotta admit, the town would be a hell of a lot better without that crime lord around. And he pissed them off enough that they’re starting to come around on that point too.”

He isn’t wrong. Lynbroke is incredibly festive and delightful, or at least what Molly’s seen of it is festive and delightful so far, but the dark underbelly that keeps showing anyway does need some lightening. He sighs. It’s Fjord and the Schuesters all over again, but he can’t deny that—well, they can’t not try to leave this town a little bit better than they found it. He can’t even bring himself to try to discourage this urge, as inconvenient as it is. After all, it kind of is his fault they adopted his personal philosophy.

So he pats Fjord on the shoulder, and hopes it seems approving enough to pass muster.

It looks like it does, because Fjord gives him a tired smile. “We’ll explain what I mean in the morning,” says his old roommate, says their _leader_ , and he’s grown, hasn’t he. Molly wishes he’d been there to see it happen, but this is the next best thing. He’s glad for that much. “Got a lot to talk about, but right now, I just wanna sleep.”

Molly nods, and mimes rubbing his head up against a pillow. Fjord chuckles, and heads upstairs, presumably joining Yasha in her room for the night.

Caleb comes up, then, his hand resting on the inside of Molly’s elbow. Molly smiles, and falls in beside him, walking up the stairs to their room once more. For a moment, he lets himself indulge in a fantasy—where everything is all right, where Caleb is bringing him up to bed for a kiss in the moonlight, for a confession, where there’s no sword hanging over either of them and no wizard with her claws in Molly’s head. Where Molly doesn’t _flinch_ , when Caleb’s words have the weight of arcane power behind them, briefly and irrationally scared of what that power could do.

The door opens, then shuts, the sound of it snapping Molly out of his fantasies.

Caleb sits down on the bed, and says, quiet, “I couldn’t—I didn’t want to say this to Nott, she would blame herself even more, but what was she _thinking_ , writing a letter to Astrid?”

“You’re asking me?” says Molly, dryly, coming to sit next to him and taking the cloak off. “I can’t read minds. I’m good, but I’m not _that_ good. The best I can give you is that she honestly thought it would be best for you to get into touch with an old friend of yours.” Seen from that perspective, he can understand why Nott had tried to feel her out.

“I told her what I told you,” says Caleb, fiddling with his bandages. “Astrid killed her parents, the same as me, and she did not break. Neither did Eodwulf. Both of them are not people to be trifled with, and they will view this as someone trifling with them. What do you think?”

“Either that, or they’ll just toss it out, they’ve got bigger things on their plate,” says Molly, waving his hand. “You know the war’s not going well? For either side, honestly. Seems like the Empire lost something very valuable to the Krynn Dynasty, so now they’re stealing from each other like two kids who haven’t learned to share.”

“By something very valuable,” says Caleb, slowly, “do you mean the dodecahedron?”

“Yep,” says Molly. Then he pauses, grins, and says, “And Astrid _doesn’t know_ we have it. I didn’t tell her, and she didn’t exactly deign to try and ask me.”

“So we have the very thing that this war may have been started for,” says Caleb. “And we used it to win a drinking contest. At least four times.”

Molly stares at him, incredulous. _At least?_

“It may have been five,” says Caleb, contemplatively. “Although that last time was a tie, so far as I can remember. And I cannot remember it very well, I was very drunk.”

Molly shakes his head, not even bothering to try and hide his mirth. Of course they used the world-altering magical artifact to win three or four more drinking contests. He shouldn’t even be so surprised. At least they hadn’t completely forgotten about it, he wouldn’t have been shocked if they did.

Caleb smiles at him, and Molly’s breath catches in his throat, his heart beating like a drum even despite how the night went. He likes that smile, it’s a shy little thing that should come out more often than it does. “I knew you’d like that,” Caleb says, quiet. “We missed you, those times. You would’ve liked to see it. You would’ve liked to see so much.” He breathes out slow, smile fading.

Molly places his hand over his, squeezes once. Caleb squeezes back, before he lets go and runs a hand through his hair.

“You said Astrid might value you more as a prize,” says Caleb. “Or Jester, or Fjord, or Yasha. Why is that?”

“Because you’re very good at hiding,” says Molly. “Jester doesn’t hide, Yasha’s too honest to hide, I picked up all Astrid’s tricks for hiding and haven’t patched the loopholes up just yet, and Fjord is—actually, I think you and Fjord are very good at it, but you hide in plain sight. Fjord needs masks, and you give out your real name everywhere we go.”

“Who says Widogast was the name I had when Astrid and I knew each other,” says Caleb, and—well, he’s got a point there, Molly will concede that. If Caleb’s smart enough to steal an anti-scrying necklace, he’s smart enough to change his name to avoid official attention. “But—you’re not wrong, I suppose. It matches up, with what I remember near the end. _Sag etwas,_ Mollymauk.”

Molly flops onto his back, using his hands as a pillow for his neck. “When he trained you, did Ikithon ever make you read junk letters?” he asks.

“What?”

“Like what Nott sent,” Molly says. “Letters that don’t mean anything, not truly, they’re just written because the writer wants money. Gustav told me he used to send out a couple every so often, scamming people from far away for some gold, but it wasn’t what really interested him. Did your teacher ever make you read those?”

“If it had nothing to do with serving the Empire, we were not supposed to do it,” says Caleb. “If he thought it would get in the way of our blind devotion to the Empire, it needed to be incinerated to ash. I know that look, you want to speak. What is it?”

That, depressingly, explains a lot. “Nott’s letter is likely ashes in the fireplace,” says Molly. “Astrid’s focus at the moment is tracking down Xhorhasian elements that have snuck into the Empire. Some made-up province’s made-up heir isn’t going to catch much more from her than some vague annoyance.”

Caleb’s fingers tap out a rhythm on his patched-up trousers, as he chews at his lower lip, apparently thinking it over. Molly listens carefully, and thinks of a song Desmond used to play, the one about a knight of winter with no memory, made to fight his lover and his friends. That had ended sadly, with the knight turning to dust in his lover’s arms just after he remembered who he had been, and Molly hadn’t really liked it very much. _It’s an old Zemnian tale,_ Desmond had said, when Molly had asked what the fuck was that ending for, _they never really end happily._

Molly hums the song, absently, and the rhythm matches up. Caleb blinks down at him, and says, “How do you know that song?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah,” says Molly, “Desmond played it a few times. Always guaranteed to make everyone at the campfire cry, that one.” He huffs out a tired laugh, and looks up at the ceiling, counts the cracks. “I never did like the ending,” he says.

“My mother used to sing it to me so I would sleep at night,” says Caleb, nostalgically. “Why didn’t you like the ending?”

“Too damn _sad_ ,” says Molly. “The poor bastard got his head fucked with, got turned against his friends and his lover, got dragged into one fight after another when he just wanted to go home, and to top it off, he _dies_ at the end. Why would anyone sing that to their kid? How did you not have nightmares?”

“It was a very slow song and it calmed me,” says Caleb. “But you are not wrong, it is very sad.” He lies back on the bed as well, beside Molly, their feet hanging off the side of the bed. “It’s strange, I haven’t thought of that song in a while.”

Neither did Molly, but now it’s playing in the back of his head, with Desmond crooning the chorus: _so kiss me once then kiss me twice then kiss me once again, it’s been a long, long time…_

It’s been a very long time, and he is so very tired. Molly turns his head to look at Caleb, and reaches a hand up to his cheek, fingers drifting lightly over his face. He wonders, suddenly, recklessly, what Caleb’s lips might taste like, might feel like on his. What it must be like, to have more than this, more than a touch, more than a dance, more than sparks of something smothered for their sakes.

God, he wants so _much_ , he aches with it.

Caleb’s hand drifts up, fingers loosely curling around his wrist. Grounding, pulling him back from the edge, from doing something irreversible on a whim. “I,” he starts, then falters. “Mollymauk,” he says, instead, and in his mouth the name sounds soft, cherished, _treasured_. Like a pearl falling from his lips, to be caught and held close to the heart. “We should sleep.”

And just like that, the moment passes, and Molly lets him guide his hand away. He doesn’t let go, though, just keeps Molly’s hand away from his face, thumb rubbing absently over the faint pulse at his wrist.

They stay that way, for a few more minutes, so close that Molly can measure the distance between them in inches, can count the freckles on Caleb’s face even in the dim moonlight, where everything is black and white. Once upon a time Gustav had pointed out the constellations in the night sky, said some shit about how he could predict the future in those stars, and Molly had laughed and tossed some jerky at him, said he would stick to his cards instead, they told better stories.

He wonders if he can trace constellations on Caleb’s back. He’s seen it before in bathhouses, the man’s not exactly shy about nudity despite all other things, and he’s seen freckles sprayed across his shoulders like stars in the sky. Although he had seen some scars, too, the kind that meant Caleb hadn’t seen a healer for them right away.

So. Okay. Maybe kissing him isn’t the best idea. Neither of them are in the best states of mind, right now, and in the long-term he doubts it would work out if they started something _now_ , in the middle of this crisis, while Molly still can’t completely trust himself not to flip and kill everyone with a word.

Hopefully he doesn’t _die tomorrow_ , that would be incredibly fucked up.

Eventually Caleb lets go of him, and they shift around on the bed so they’re the right way up. Molly half-expects him to just sleep with his back to him, but once he’s settled himself, he feels Caleb’s arm creep up his arm, the palm of Caleb’s hand resting over his knuckles.

“Good night, Mr. Mollymauk,” Caleb murmurs.

 _Good night, Mr. Caleb,_ Molly doesn’t say, and closes his eyes.

\--

Jester knocks on the door, like yesterday.

Like yesterday, Molly opens the door again, but unlike yesterday, Caleb’s still snoring on the bed, sprawled out like a starfish. It’s _super cute_ , and Jester wishes she hadn’t left her sketchbook in her room—hm. “Let me go get my sketchbook!” she says, and sprints down the hallway.

Nott’s still snoring in their shared bedroom, sleep-gnawing on a pillow. Jester draws the blanket up over her shoulders, and she stirs a little, mumbling something about sentient shark emperors as she keeps gnawing on her pillow. Jester snickers, then presses a little kiss to the very top of Nott’s head.

Then she pulls out her sketchbook and pencil and races back to Molly and Caleb’s room. Caleb is, happily, still asleep when she steps inside, and she looks at Molly. “I’m gonna give you this drawing later,” she tells him. “So you can tuck it away in your pocket and remember this always.”

Molly nods, already tugging on his colorful coat. It looks _right_ on him, the way it had never quite seemed on anyone else. Or maybe Jester’s just used to seeing it on him. He pulls a chair up and gestures to it with a flourish.

Jester sits down on it, pulling her knees up so she can better draw. A weight drops onto her shoulder, and she glances over to see Molly peering down at her doodle of Caleb, sleeping in bed. On paper, he’s drooling so much that a small pool has formed around the bed, and a little sketchy, pouty Molly is paddling his way over in a rowboat.

Molly snickers.

“You can have this or you can have the super romantic version, I’m working on that right now,” she says, showing him the sketched lines of Caleb’s sleeping form. Unlike the little doodle, she’s making sure to add some soft lighting and rumpled hair, although Caleb’s face isn’t well-defined just yet. She works on the rest of him, first, mindful of Molly’s eyes on the sketch.

He taps her shoulder after a moment, points at the sketched Caleb’s face, then pulls his hair back and traces small lines across his own jaw.

“He’s scruffy enough,” Jester argues.

Molly shakes his head, mimes—washing his face? And shaving? Oh! Shaving nicks. He wants her to add little shaving nicks.

Jester stares up at him and says, “His beard is back, how do you know he has little—oh my _god_ Molly—”

He shakes his head, and touches his face, then slashes his hand through the air. They almost had.

“That’s _so romantic_ ,” Jester whispers, reverent. “I kind of get why you guys wouldn’t kiss straightaway, though, because that thing in your head makes consent really iffy between you two.”

Molly opens his mouth, then shuts it, and oh, she really hates that glum look on his face. He shouldn’t look so _broken_ , this is Molly, he doesn’t deserve this kind of dumb bullshit happening to him. Then again, Jester can think of a number of stupid things that shouldn’t have happened that did anyway. Like, urgh, _Captain Avantika_. Or, argh, _Astrid_.

She glares down at her sketchbook.

Molly pats her shoulder, and she turns to look at him. He lowers his head to bump his horns against hers, before pressing a little kiss to the very top of her head. Like she’s the one who needs comforting between the two of them, not him. Then he nods to Caleb, who—oh, _shit_ , is he waking up? She hasn’t even finished yet!

“ _Was ist…_ ” Caleb mumbles, shifting in his blankets. Molly strides over, kneels down and prods his shoulder, then presses his finger to his lips and waves a hand in Jester’s direction. Caleb pokes his head up a little, then says, “Were you drawing me?”

“Don’t _move_ ,” Jester huffs.

“Oh,” says Caleb, “ _ja_ , all right, I’m going back to sleep.” He drops his head back onto the pillow, and within less than two minutes, he’s snoring again. Molly smiles a little, still kneeling at Caleb’s bedside, tail contentedly swaying like cornstalks in the breeze. It’s like a scene right out of _Tusk Love_ , only instead of a human lady and a half-orc gentleman, it’s Caleb and Molly.

A thorny vine wraps around her heart, despite the happiness bubbling in her chest. She’s happy for them, she is, she just—

She’s _happy_ , that’s all. No other feelings here, nosirree. That thorny vine scraping around her heart isn’t anything, is just righteous fury at Astrid, that’s it, that’s all, nothing to do with her and Fjord and anything between them. It would be dumb, anyway! Molly and Caleb have nothing to do with that! She shouldn’t be jealous! And she’s _not_ , not at all.

She looks up to see Molly, reaching out to brush Caleb’s hair back behind his ears. It’s so tender, so sweet. Hard to believe that days ago Molly’d held a sword to his throat, eyes flat and dead.

She looks back down at her sketch, and starts drawing in a tattooed hand, fingers tracing around Caleb’s jawline. She doesn’t draw more than that, she’s got enough sketches of Molly. Sketches that she needs to improve, now that he’s back, now that she can compare him to the drawings she made from memory, find what’s wanting on paper.

Eventually, she finishes, just as Caleb finally stirs awake. “ _Guten Morgen,_ ” he mumbles, before yawning. “ _Was—_ How long was I asleep?”

“Not that long,” says Molly, “no more than twenty minutes. Jester drew you, by the way.”

“She draws everyone, of course she did,” says Caleb, stretching his arms up over his head. Knuckles crack loudly enough that even Jester can hear it, and he shakes his hands a few times as if to shake something out. “Did you come here to cast Remove Curse? I can stand guard outside, as before.”

“Yes, I did!” says Jester. “And thanks bunches, Caleb. If anything goes really wrong I’ll yell _Uno_ and knock Molly out.” She looks at Molly and adds, “No offense.”

Molly shrugs, then tugs slightly at his red dress, and then his coat, and holds his hand in front of himself like he’s trying to shield his clothes.

Oh, okay. “I won’t do anything to your coat or your new dress, promise,” says Jester, holding her hand up like she’s swearing a holy oath. “I’ll just cast a Hold Person on you. Or knock you out, because I might need that spell.” With a grin, she whispers, “I’m really good at knocking people out now, Beau’s been showing me lots of cool tricks.”

“She knocked a man unconscious with a very large battleaxe once,” Caleb says as he swings his feet off the bed, picking his coat up and tugging it on, snapping his cat back into existence, and Jester preens. “It was very terrifying yet impressive.”

Molly raises an eyebrow, gives her a thumbs-up, then turns back to Caleb. He steps closer, kneeling down to pet Frumpkin, then flaps his hand at Caleb as if to shoo him off.

“Well, I know when I am not wanted,” Caleb says, stepping around the two of them. He glances briefly at Frumpkin, and for a moment Jester wonders if he’s going to call his cat back. Then he turns and walks out the door, shutting it behind him. Frumpkin doesn’t move away, and only gives a slightly irritated meow when Jester bounds over and scoops him up into her arms.

“You are so cute!” she coos to the cat. “Okay, Molly, sit down on the bed, I will do the thing now.”

Molly sits on the bed, reaching out to take Frumpkin from her and place him gently onto his lap. Peace breaks like dawn on the horizon over his face, as he pets Frumpkin, and the cute little cat gently butts his forehead against Molly’s palm.

Jester sits next to him. “Hi, Frumpy,” she whispers to the fey cat, who meows at her and bats at the charm hanging from her left horn. “No, I need that!”

Molly scritches the cat behind his ears, not at all sympathetic to Jester’s plight. Super rude of him, really.

She reaches out, touches his shoulder. He looks up and arranges himself, so she can easily put her hands on both sides of his face. He shuts his eyes, holding the cat tight.

“This won’t hurt,” she says. Her hands glow dimly white, and she leans forward to press her fingers against his temples.

\--

“What’re you doing out here?” says Fjord, stopping in his tracks when he sees Caleb sitting against the door to his and Molly’s room. “I figured you’d have gone down by now.”

“Mollymauk and Jester are removing bits and pieces of the web of spells that Astrid wove,” says Caleb, leaning his head back against the door. “I was kicked out. I’m standing guard now, just in case something goes horribly wrong and Jester needs help.”

...fair. They’ve been lucky so far, that Molly hasn’t flipped out since yesterday, but it’s still too early in the morning for Fjord to be comfortable their luck will hold for long. And Caleb’s more of a ranged guy, if he’s not working on crowd control. He doesn’t doubt that Caleb and Jester together might be able to take Molly if he does somehow snap back to that half-feral killer from before, but it can’t hurt to have an extra person with them to help out.

—fuck, he’s thinking about taking down _Molly_. Sure, it’s just in case, but. Hell. _Still_. It leaves an awful taste in his mouth, like saltwater flooding in and filling his lungs. Molly’s only just come back, things shouldn’t be like this. Things should be better, they shouldn’t be sitting outside the room waiting for the other shoe to fall. Some part of him thinks: _if you’d been better Molly wouldn’t need to come back at all, he’d already be here._

But there’s no changing the past, no fixing that. All they can do is sit here and hope things will turn out okay, and so far they have. Fjord hopes it continues that way, but he’s been with this group for long enough that the falchion, the _Sword of Fathoms_ , isn’t far from his mind. If anything goes wrong, he’ll summon it into his hand.

But gods does he not want to. Not against Molly again. That’s his friend, he’s been through enough, they all have.

“He would want you to,” says Caleb, suddenly.

Fjord looks over, and says, “What?”

“Mollymauk,” says Caleb. “He is good, he does not deserve this. But if anything happens because of him, he will want you to do what you need to do.” 

“How d’you know that?” Fjord asks.

Caleb shuts his eyes. “If someone had stopped me, long ago,” he says, “perhaps—”

He stops, then opens his eyes to look at Fjord. So much of Caleb is laid bare, now, after that first fight, so much of him explained, and Fjord finds himself wondering what he might’ve been like had he never been selected by that Ikithon bastard. Likely much happier. Gods. Poor Caleb. Shit, poor _Molly_ , because unlike with Caleb, he’s known Molly _before_ Astrid got her mitts on her. He can catalogue all the differences between Molly before and after, and each one is another knife in his gut.

“He would want you to do what you have to,” Caleb says, after a moment.

Fjord breathes out, slow. “And what’ll you do?” he asks, an idea popping into his head. “You’re pretty fond of each other. Could you talk him down, if he flips out?”

“He is—I do not think fondness is the right word for how he feels about me,” Caleb says, and it’s strange, how he can go from calmly, coolly calculating to flustered as hell in a hot second. “We are not—Whatever we are, it is not, it _couldn’t_ be what everyone seems to think it is.”

“Caleb,” says Fjord, “I’m not blind. You two have a connection, and it’s not just ‘cause of the thing in his head.” He lets his head fall back against the wooden door. “But that’s not what I’m asking about. I just wanna know if you’ll be able to talk Molly down, if he flips out. Use a word or something that’ll get him to back down, even if he’s actively trying to kill us.”

“I could do that, _ja_ ,” says Caleb, reluctantly. “It would work better with me, I could order him to stand down in Zemnian and he would comply.” There’s a note of experience in Caleb’s tone, and Fjord’s gut twists into a knot at the resignation on his face.

“Hopefully things don’t get that bad,” Fjord says, desperate to bring _some_ hope back to the situation. “So far, seems like Molly snaps out of it fairly quickly.”

“He wasn’t there as long as the ones that we used, when we were apprentices,” says Caleb, “and Astrid does not have as careful a touch as Ikithon does. She wouldn’t be as thorough, and she would only have cracked him, not broken him utterly.”

“ _That’s_ cracked?” says Fjord, incredulous.

“Someone like Mollymauk? Someone who fought with everything he had to hold on to his self?” Caleb glances back at the door, then at Fjord. “Seven months would not be enough time to truly scrape every part of him out of his skull, to shape him into a weapon like all the rest.”

“Enough time to really fuck him up, though,” says Fjord.

“Well,” says Caleb, with experience weighing down every word, “no one escapes from that kind of thing intact.”


	28. pain, truth, choice and other poison devils

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is paraphrased from A Perfect Circle's "Counting Bodies Like Sheep". song in text is from Sara Bareilles' "Send Me The Moon".

_The snowy landscape of Glory Run Road melts away, and trees burst from the ground around Jester, growing from seed to sapling to tree in a matter of seconds. A cabin emerges from the soil beside her, planks shooting up and curving and bending until they’re recognizable as a cabin. In moments, Jester’s no longer standing off the road Molly died on—instead, she’s standing in the middle of the woods. It’s dark and cold and even a little bit rainy, and Jester shivers as the rain pours down on her._

_Oh, wait. This is Molly’s mind. She snaps her fingers and a little bubble pops into existence around her, keeping the rain off her. “That’s better,” she says, out loud, before a twig cracks just too loudly. She turns on her heel and sees Molly, walking in the rain like he doesn’t care it’s there at all, only—only it’s not quite Molly._

_His hair’s purple, this time, but hacked short, like someone went at it with a knife without much care what it would look like. He’s wearing dark leathers, a cloak of faded green, and a knife slides into his hand from his sleeve as he steps around the cabin, almost seeming to melt into the shadows as he goes. As Jester watches, he cuts his palm open, and crystals flash-freeze onto the knife’s edge. He looks up at the wall and, with no hesitation, steps through it._

_Jester whips around, rushing onto the porch and into the cabin, shoving the door open as she does. That hadn’t been Molly, she knows that, but that hadn’t been that dick Lucien either. That had been the silent, snarling shadow that had almost killed them in their sleep, one of Caleb’s something-something toten people. Which means—_

_She kicks the bedroom door open, and gasps._

_There’s a corpse in the bed. It’s not anyone she recognizes, it’s just some random human, and his throat’s been slit deep. Blood stains the pillow beneath him, the clothes, the blankets, and he stares sightlessly up at the ceiling, mouth frozen in terror._

_Molly’s standing over him, knife still dripping blood-red. He turns around and starts for the window._

_“Molly!” Jester calls, hurrying forward to try and catch his sleeve. Her fingers pass through him like smoke, and he continues on, climbing through the window. “No, no, Molly, come on—”_

_Then something scrapes, very loudly, off the shield on her back as Molly drops out of sight. Jester whips around to see the corpse, somehow moving despite the gaping wound in its throat, a familiar and wicked-looking dagger now in hand._

_“Oh, great, you again,” Jester huffs._

_The corpse gurgles, the blood from its throat bubbling. It flips the knife in its hand and glares her down, hatred still clear in its eyes despite the lack of a voice._ Astrid’s _hatred, Jester figures out. It’s Astrid, animating this memory of a corpse, turning it against Jester._

 _“Not super great not being able to talk, huh?” says Jester, summoning her lollipop and gripping the handle tight. “That’s what you get, you shithead!” She swings wide, and the corpse ducks under her lollipop, knife flipping to drive into her side. Jester’s momentum carries her just far enough away that the knife only manages to leave behind a shallow slice, but it still_ hurts _._

_The corpse grins with bloodstained teeth. Eugh, that’s just gross. It makes a burbling noise that Jester’s pretty sure was supposed to be a taunt, but given the open wound in its throat, it just makes a horrible, wet noise._

_Jester reverses her lollipop and slams the handle’s end into the corpse’s face. Its jaw breaks under the force of her blow, and it staggers back with its mouth open. It flings its hand out with a snarl, and a shard of ice explodes from its hand. Jester dives to the side, the shard just barely missing, and gets her lollipop up in front of her just in time before the shard explodes into itty-bitty sharp little pieces._

_Then she swings out again, making sure that the side with sharp bits of ice poking out from it is the side that smashes into the corpse’s head. Now the corpse stumbles backward from the force of the blow, falling onto its ass, but it staggers back up to its feet anyway. It lunges towards her, knife plunging into her shoulder before she manages to kick it off of her._

__“Stay down,” _she snarls in Infernal, stomping her foot. The floor freezes solid under her, ice spreading rapidly and catching the corpse in its tracks. It gives a horrible, high-pitched, burbling noise that sounds like it’s trying to scream even through the gaping wound that its throat has become._

 _Jester blinks, and the corpse’s image flickers, turns into Astrid snarling something in Zemnian. “_ Fick dich _, you stupid little brat,” she hisses._

_Jester rolls her eyes. “You’re pretty dumb for someone who knows so much about magic, if you think no one’s going to come fix what you did to my friend,” she says. “Now shut up and let me work.” So saying, she lifts her lollipop up high and brings it down on Astrid’s head. There’s a satisfying crunch before Astrid disappears, and in a flash, the bedroom that Jester is still in transforms into an office, the knife disappearing from her shoulder like it was never even there._

__What the— __

 _She turns, to see that the corpse is not in bed like she thought it would be. It’s slumped over a desk instead, a knife buried in its heart. Molly is stepping back from it, hair still hacked short, clothes still dark and a little grimy, but his eyes are wide and horrified. That’s not Lucien, and that’s not the broken, half-feral killer that would do anything not to be hurt anymore. That’s_ Molly _, that’s her friend, looking horrified and backing away, a note crumpling in his hand._

 _“Oh, no,” she whispers, watching Molly’s back hit the window. “Oh,_ Molly. _” She steps closer, to try to catch hold of the sleeve of Molly’s coat, but her hand passes through instead. He shudders, his breath coming in fast and shaky gulps, like he’s close to a panic attack. It hurts to see him like this, scared and confused and only just now resurfacing from underneath the ice of the broken, half-feral thing they made of him._

_Then he whips around and jumps out the window, and Jester swears, vaulting over as well. At least she tries to, anyway, but unlike Molly, who lands on his feet, Jester finds herself lying face-down in an alleyway and groaning. She hasn’t broken anything, that’s good, and the pain that she expects just doesn’t come at all, but it’s not exactly her idea of a fun time._

_She gets to her feet and takes off running. She looks, catching sight of a purple tiefling tail just disappearing around the corner, and gives chase._

_A finger snaps. Just three feet away from the house where a man just died, Astrid’s form shimmers back into existence. She frowns._

_Another snap, and suddenly Jester’s watching Molly pushing through the bushes, hood pulled up to hide his horns. He stops for a moment, panting, and rests a hand on a tree. Then he pauses, and starts looking through his pockets, muttering, “Where is it, where is it, where—”_

_“Molly?” Jester calls._

_“_ Jagdhund _,” Astrid says, and she steps through the bushes, calm as anything._

_Molly goes still and quiet. Then he draws out another dagger, and cuts across his arm. A familiar eerie glow creeps up the blade, and Molly whips around and rushes towards Astrid._

_“This again,” Astrid mutters. She holds her hand out and murmurs a word, and Molly falls to his knees with a choked-off scream, unable to move a muscle. Jester rushes to his side, divine energy already sparking at her fingertips, but her hand passes through his arm again. This is a memory. She can’t change it._

_Astrid crouches down, tilts Molly’s head up. “Don’t make me waste more spells on you,” she huffs._

_Molly doesn’t smile, but there’s a defiant spark in his eyes that says if he could smile, he would._

_Astrid’s jaw tightens. Green light gathers at her fingers. “I’m going to drop the spell,” she says. “Are you going to be a good hunting dog?”_

_Molly blinks once. Astrid snaps her fingers, and Molly picks his dagger up again and tackles her. She grabs his wrist before he can stab her, and for a moment they’re both pushing against each other, Molly’s dagger pressing just enough into Astrid’s neck to draw blood, not enough to kill her._

_Astrid grins up at him, green light sparking at her fingertips. “Got you,” she says, and the spell’s discharge is bright enough that Jester shields her eyes._

When she opens them again, she’s standing in the same snowy landscape as before. Three red threads fade to nothing before her eyes, and she turns on her heel to see Molly, still wrapped in terrible strings biting into his skin, blinking up at her in the fading sunlight.

“Oh,” he says, horrified. “Oh, _fuck_.”

“Molly!” says Jester, rushing to his side and wrapping her arms around him, careful not to pull at the strings too much. He makes a soft little noise in answer, and hugs her back as best as he can. “You almost made it back.”

“I didn’t get very far,” Molly says, voice choked with tears. “Gods, Jester, I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“I’m not sorry,” says Jester. “I’m very strong, I can take seeing some fucked-up stuff in your head.” She breaks away, wipes the tears from his face. “What was the spell she used on you?”

Molly licks his lips, as if debating whether to tell her, then sighs and says, “You know how we’re pretending I got hit with Feeblemind?”

“What?”

“That,” says Molly, voice weighed down with experience, like lead. “That’s how I know what someone would do, under it. What I would do, anyway.” He shrugs, then looks away. “I still didn’t like her. I didn’t know anything but I just knew she’d taken something important away.”

Oh, Molly. “You have it back, though,” Jester says, cupping his face in her hands, rubbing her thumb along his cheek. “You came back. You’re here.”

“Silver linings,” Molly says, looking back at her now and leaning a little into her touch. “You know, even despite that—I don’t regret breaking and running, that time, now that I remember it. I just wish I’d gotten away, back to you all.”

“Me too,” sighs Jester. “You know I was trying to help?”

“I know, I could hear you,” says Molly. “You are helping, you’re helping me immensely, and I can’t ever thank you enough for what you’re doing. There’s just some things you can’t change.” He blurs in front of her, and oh—she’s crying, she realizes.

Tears sting the corners of her eyes, and she rubs away at them. “I know,” she says, “I know, I just—I saw you, and you were really fucked up, and I couldn’t _do anything_ and it felt just like when you _died_ except worse—”

Molly pulls her forward, wrapping his arms tight around her. She breaks, then and there, the tears flowing readily as she holds on to his shirt, sobbing through her explanation, through her apologies. His hand cards through her hair, tender and even a little bit hesitant.

“Jester,” he says, quietly, “you can’t change what happened. Or the memory of it, either. I was—god, I really was fucked up, I might’ve been a couple months in that time, I wasn’t at my best, but whenever I was lucid all I could think was how glad I was you weren’t here, and how worried because I didn’t know if you were rescued.” His other hand rubs down her back, gentle and soothing. “You’re doing something now. You’re saving me, and that’s no small thing.”

“I wish we could’ve done it sooner,” says Jester.

“And I wish I got away sooner,” says Molly. “But this is what we’ve got, and at least it’s better now than four days ago.” He breaks away then, bleeding a little from how tightly the red threads are digging into his skin, but he takes the time to press a gentle kiss to Jester’s hairline. “It’s not perfect, but I’d rather have this, fucked-up mess and all, than that half-life,” he says. “Or being dead. I’m happy to see all of you again. Less happy about all the self-blame going around, but,” and he grins at her, “we’ll work on that.”

Jester sniffs, and wipes at her tears. “Can I leave you something here?” she asks.

“Like the forget-me-nots?” Molly says. “Sure.”

Jester closes her eyes and concentrates. There’d been a music box made of polished wood and ivory in her room, when she was younger, one that played a slow, sweet song that her mom sometimes sang to her. The words come to her now, as does the tune of it: _Sweet sun, send me the moon…_

She opens her eyes. The same music box from her room sits between them now, and she flips the lid open. Instead of the little tiefling dancer, though, the figures in the box are those of a fortuneteller with a detailed coat, who’s been frozen in the middle of an impromptu dance, and a scruffy wizard in a shabby coat, who’s been pulled along into the dance. A cat winds around their feet, deftly avoiding being stomped on.

The tune continues now, _empty the skies out, bringing me one step closer to you._

“Oh, I know this song,” Molly says, picking the music box up as it slows to a stop. “Toya would sing it sometimes, when we were practicing.” He winds it up again and smiles as it plays once more, _watch from the ground as the gold fluttered down from the sky._

“My mama would sing it for me when I was a kid,” says Jester. “She sang me a lot of songs when I was a kid.” She smiles, a little sad. “You’d have liked to meet her,” she says. “I told her a little bit about you, and she said she would’ve liked to meet you. _He sounds like a character,_ ” she adds, pitching her voice low and shifting her accent so it sounds more like her mother’s. She’s not Fjord, it’s not a perfect imitation, but it makes Molly smile, so she counts it as a victory.

“Where did you say she was?” he asks. “Nicodranas, right?”

“Yep,” says Jester. “But we can’t go back for a bit ‘cause we were _sort of_ pirates and also Lord Robert something-or-other still wants me like, dead for the little prank I played on him.” She sighs, theatrically, and flops down next to Molly. “Some people take things way too seriously,” she says.

“He sounds like he needed that prank played on him,” Molly muses. “And maybe Nott sicced on him.”

“Oh my _god_ you’re _right_ ,” gasps Jester, shooting up. “Next time we go there, we’ll sic Nott on him! Molly, you are a genius, and I’m so glad you’re back!” She scrambles closer to peck his cheek, and he laughs.

“It’s going to go horribly, I imagine,” he says. “I want credit for the idea, just so you know.”

“I’ll be sure to give credit where it’s due,” says Jester, standing up. “I’m going to go now. If I don’t run out of spells I’ll do this again later.” She bends down to tuck some strands of hair back behind his ears. “We’ll get you back,” she says. “All the way back. Promise.”

“I know you will,” says Molly, and Jester shuts her eyes.

When she opens them again, she’s back in Molly and Caleb’s room, the sunlight streaming in through the window. Molly stares at her with wide eyes as she lets her hands fall away, but doesn’t say anything. Instead he just pulls his knees up to his chest, like the memory’s just now sunk back in. And she supposes it only now just did.

“Molly?” she says. He looks up, and gives her the tiniest nod. “Is it okay if I hug you?”

Another nod. Jester leans forward and pulls him in close. After a moment, Molly’s arms wrap around her, and he breaks into wordless sobs against her blouse. He shakes like a leaf in her arms, gripping onto her so tightly that her blouse stays wrinkled up when his sobs finally slow. It’s had much worse than some tears and wrinkles, though, so Jester just strokes down his back through the storm.

“It’s okay, Molly,” she murmurs. “It’s okay.”

She presses a kiss to the top of his head, like forgiveness.

“It’s okay.”

\--

Caleb raps on the door and says, “Are you decent?”

“Wait, don’t come in, I’m naked!” calls Jester, at about the same time Molly says, “Just let me put my dress on first!” Then a chorus of giggles drifts out from behind the door, which Caleb takes to mean that, yes, they’re all right and _probably_ never even took their clothes off.

Fjord gives a quiet little chuckle beside the door, ducking his head. Caleb notes the little smile on his face, the hint of tusks peeking through as he smiles. “We’re gonna be okay,” says Fjord, and Caleb could almost let himself believe that.

The door opens, and Jester says, “Hi, Caleb! Hi, Oskar—I mean, _Fjord_.”

“Hey, Jes,” says Fjord. He nods to Molly on the bed, who’s distractedly fiddling with his deck. “Hey, Molly. You guys wanna head down? Might be Beau’s spared some meat for you.”

“Unlikely,” says Caleb, because he’s seen Beau demolish a whole steak by herself after a hard battle, before stowing the leftovers in her pockets. The woman is a terrifying force of nature when confronted with cooked meats. “Between her and Yasha, they will have picked the plates clean.”

“I hope she ordered pastries,” says Jester.

Molly pulls a card on the bed, then jumps back as if the card burned him, and badly. The card flutters to the floor, so much seemingly harmless paper for the reaction that Molly’s had to it. He opens his mouth, then shuts it, scarlet eyes wide with fear.

“Molly?” says Fjord. “Something up?”

“Mollymauk, are you all right?” says Caleb, worriedly. He steps closer, picking up the card—the Raven Queen’s mask peers away to the side, on the front of it, and the pale white horse she’s riding is mid-unhurried gallop. The Death card.

Caleb’s throat closes up, at the sight of it. It shouldn’t. He shouldn’t be reacting like this. As unsettling as the sight of it is, it’s only a card, no magic embedded in it beyond the stories Molly had told with his card. Only a piece of paper, painted and decorated, its back marked. Molly probably pulled this card for kicks, and Caleb thus forces himself to relax.

He turns to look at Molly, and knows then and there that Molly hadn’t, in fact, pulled it for a laugh. There’s no faking that sick horror on his face, and no falsehood in the way he all but rips the card out of Caleb’s fingers, shoving it back into his deck, the way he trembles like a leaf as he shoves the deck of cards into one of his coat pockets.

“Molly?” says Jester, already climbing onto the bed to take Molly’s hand. “Molly, are you okay?”

Molly flinches away, scooting back away from her and getting to his feet, running a hand through his hair as he paces.

“Mollymauk,” says Caleb, again, “is anything wrong?”

“That’s the sixth time I’ve drawn that fucking card,” says Molly, agitated, tail flicking about, the tip of it slapping against the floor. “Once is one thing, twice or even thrice another, but _six times_? I wasn’t even _looking_ for it.” His hand flies up to his hair, running through plum-dark hair, pulling, his other hand pressing into his collarbones, fingers tracing a line just below his neck. “Fuck,” he says, succinctly, the word infused with so much fear and terror that Caleb gets up off the bed.

But Fjord beats him and even Jester to it, his fingers wrapping around Molly’s wrist. “Hey, hey,” Fjord says, soothing, like trying to gentle a frightened horse. “Molly, Molls, c’mon. Let go, yeah? Nobody wants you giving yourself a hell of a headache. You can let go now, it’s fine.”

Jester comes up behind Fjord, rolling onto the very tips of her toes so more than just her horns can be visible above Fjord’s shoulder. Caleb sighs, and steps closer, wrapping his arms around her torso to lift her up, despite the risk that he’ll wrench a shoulder out of its socket or something. He is not very strong.

He grunts with effort as he lifts her, just enough so at least her whole face is visible. Hopefully he won’t be expected to keep holding her up for very long.

Molly’s fingers slowly uncurl from his hair. He breathes in and out, slow, then seems to almost collapse forward onto Fjord, like a marionette with strings cut loose.

Fjord catches him. Fjord might be a mess, like the rest of them, but if there’s one thing Caleb knows he can rely on from Fjord, it’s that their leader will at least _try_ to catch any of them if they fall. The other side of that, though, is that Fjord will blame himself if he can’t catch them, and that will eat at his soul until there’s hardly anything left to feast on. Caleb has years of experience with his own guilt to back that up—he is a creature of guilt, haunted by the smell of smoke and the sound of his parents’ screams. There is nothing left of the boy he was, once.

Guilt eats at them all, in one way or another.

His gut twists in cold knots. His shoulders hurt, but that’s more from Jester’s weight than anything. He wonders, suddenly, if this is guilt eating at _Molly_ , if this is how it shows. Molly has never been one for guilt, in Caleb’s memory. When Caleb closes his eyes and thinks of him, he sees a careless grin, a lack of shame, a story spun from bullshit and painted in gold. No room for guilt, sharp-toothed and always hungry.

His arms are growing numb. With a quiet huff, he sets Jester down, and she all but presses herself against Fjord’s back, hands catching onto the fabric of Molly’s coat. Caleb steps back, feeling like an intruder, an outsider looking in. There is a gulf between him and them that can be measured in both inches and miles, or at least there used to be. Despite his best efforts, there’s a bridge across it now, and it does not take Caleb more than a few steps to cross and join in.

The only thing he needs is a push.

He gets it when Molly lifts his head and blinks at him, mouth opening to ask before closing as the geas strangles his voice. The question is plain to see in his eyes, though: _what are you doing over there when you could be here?_

All good sense says Caleb should refuse, step further away, burn all his bridges.

Caleb crosses the bridge, stopping close to the other side. Fjord and Jester and Molly reach out and pull him in the rest of the way.


	29. wear your best fake smile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the one-section chapter, folks. I've been swallowed by exchange fics.
> 
> title is from James Bay's "Best Fake Smile".

There’s a moment, as Jester and Fjord walk out the door, where Molly has to stop in his tracks, blinking and looking down at himself.

There’s a moment where the world seems a little off-kilter, a little foxed at the edges like his deck.

There’s a moment where Molly’s heart scrabbles into his throat. This can’t be real. That hug can’t have just happened. Maybe this is just a dream, or worse, a modified memory. What part of him hasn’t been modified, changed and twisted to suit whatever the Empire needed? Stupid to think that there’s a part of him that’s safe. Stupid of him to think _he’s_ safe for anyone to be around.

Then Caleb rests his hand on his shoulder and says, “Mollymauk, I actually do need to get out of this room sometimes.”

Molly shakes his head, and steps out of the room. Caleb follows, his hand drifting down from Molly’s shoulder to the inside of his elbow. It’s grounding, somehow. It’s real. So’s the cat winding around their ankles.

“Are you all right?” Caleb asks.

“Peachy keen,” says Molly, lying. Something about his face must give it away, though, because Caleb frowns at him. “Come on, let’s head down to breakfast,” he urges instead, because this isn’t a conversation he wants to have ever, but especially not on an empty stomach. “I, for one, am more than a little bit curious about what Yasha, Fjord and Jester found last night. Something about hellhounds?”

“Dogs of Hell,” says Caleb. Then: “You know that I have gone through this before, right?”

“I know, I know,” says Molly, raking a hand through his hair. He isn’t spiraling, he’d know if he was. Wouldn’t he? “Can we just have this conversation later? I promise I’m all right. Shaken up, but I’m fine.” As fine as anyone can be under his circumstances, he supposes. If he repeats it enough times he might even be able to make himself believe it. Maybe then everyone else will. “Anyway,” he adds, “everyone’s waiting up on us downstairs. We wouldn’t want to hold up breakfast for everyone who hasn’t started yet.”

“ _Ja,_ you’d be right,” says Caleb, his stomach growling loudly enough that Molly can hear it. “Let’s go before Beau eats all of our breakfast, then. We can talk about everything else later.”

“Caleb!” calls Nott, and Molly turns to see her hurriedly pulling her mask up and over her mouth as she hops down the corridor on one sock-covered foot. She tugs the hood of her cloak up, covering her green ears and much of her stringy, lank hair. “What time is it?” she asks.

“A quarter past nine,” says Caleb, warm as ever, but there’s a tension now to his shoulders that hadn’t been there before. Last night’s panic bubbles back up in Molly’s memory, makes him shiver. “Did you only now just wake up?”

“Oh, yes,” says Nott, yawning. Then she blinks up at Caleb and frowns, eyes fixing on his shoulders. “Are you—angry?” she asks, quietly.

Caleb sighs, shakes his head. “Only tired and hungry, Nott,” he says, and his smile is genuine. “Mollymauk and I were talking.”

Nott squints up at Molly. He’s not sure how to feel about that squint, it’s the kind that says _sure_ , but with the u drawn out so long you know they’re thinking the exact opposite. “Can you go on ahead if you’re hungry, Caleb?” she asks. “I need to talk to Molly for a little bit.”

Caleb’s strikingly, unfairly blue eyes slide away from Nott to Molly. “Would you be all right if I asked you to answer her questions?” he asks.

Molly nods, not even trying to resist the urge to smile a little at him. “I’ve got to talk to someone besides you and Jester sometime,” he says. “Nott will be great practice.”

Caleb shrugs, and says, “ _Beantworte Nott’s Fragen, Mollymauk._ ” He pats Molly on the back, awkwardly, as the strange, itchy pins-and-needles feeling passes over the inside of Molly’s skull again. Then Caleb flees the scene, coat flaring as he walks away and down the stairs. Frumpkin stays for a couple more seconds, meows, then follows down after his wizard.

Nott tugs on Molly’s sleeve and says, “I need to ask you something.”

He shrugs, and nods.

“Is Caleb angry at me?” she asks. “And are _you_?”

Oh. “He’s not mad at you,” says Molly. “Terrified out of his wits, but we talked him down from that plan before we got here, remember? And then I knocked a bit more sense into his head— _metaphorically_ , don’t go for the dagger, I promise I only talked to him.” He crouches down, resting his arms on his knees, his tail curling around his torso. It aches, dully. He doesn’t think it’ll ever be completely better. “He’s probably still a little scared. Talk to him. I’m planning on hanging off Fjord’s arm today anyway, see this Lestra for myself.”

Nott doesn’t relax, not completely. She picks at the bandages on her sleeve, and it’s such a _Caleb_ habit to have, isn’t it. “So what about you?” she asks.

“What?” says Molly.

“You’re the one she hurt,” says Nott. “You’re the one she broke and twisted around. You’re—You didn’t say anything about how you feel, you just talked about Caleb, and I think you’re not bullshitting that, but I also think you’re angry at me but you don’t want me to _know_ so you talked about Caleb instead.” She pauses, then. “Please tell me the truth,” she says. “Are you angry at me?”

Molly lets out a breath. “No,” he says. Then he pauses. “But I am disappointed. I get it, is the thing. The way you and Caleb act around each other, you would never dream of hurting him intentionally. You two are freakishly codependent, or you used to be.” He wonders what that means for him now—after all, so long as this lasts, he’s dependent on Caleb just to talk. “I know you wouldn’t hurt anyone in this group on purpose, so I’m not angry about that. I’m not even angry at all.”

He lifts a hand up to rest against Nott’s shoulder. It’s bony under his palm, sharp like a knife.

“There’s a but coming, isn’t there?” asks Nott.

“Oh, yes,” says Molly. “You have this annoying little habit of digging too much into other people’s pasts. Other people’s very traumatic pasts that they’re trying their hardest to outrun.” He sighs. “I’ll admit, maybe there are times where it works out, but—don’t dig into your teammates’ pasts. You learn something about them, you don’t send letters to that something. You leave it in the dirt where it belongs.”

“But what if that thing could help them move on?” Nott asks. “I’m not—Astrid wouldn’t help, I know that now, but what if something else comes up that could help Caleb become better? More powerful? What if it’s from his past, too?”

“Then you bring it to him and you two can sort it out yourselves,” says Molly, with a shrug. “But from what I know, there’s not a lot in his past that could help him get better. We already are helping him, with a lot less execution and brainwashing to boot.”

“Well,” says Nott, weakly. “I mean, yes to both, but. We did get up to some shit while you were gone. Did anyone tell you about the pirates?”

“I’ve heard about the _Mistake_ ,” says Molly.

“What about Al—ugh, whatsisname, Al Gore?” Nott snaps her fingers.

“...no,” says Molly, slowly. Something in the back of his mind itches at the name, and Molly’s gotten surprisingly good at being able to tell which itch belongs to Lucien and which belongs to the quiet, half-dead thing he’d been up until just days ago. This? Half-dead thing. Which means it absolutely does not bear further investigation. “It sounds familiar, but I can’t remember who that is.” A memory, scrabbling up from the depths, demanding to be remembered—

He sits down, slumping against the wall, and screws his eyes shut against the headache that swells behind his eyelids. The man had only one hand, hadn’t he? And it seemed recent, seemed like he didn’t have the time to get used to it— _the man swings and he ducks, knife springing into his hand like a living thing—_

“Molly! _Molly._ ” Nott’s voice cuts through the memory like a sword through butter. Molly keeps his eyes shut, but lets her tug his hand away from his hair. “Molly, can you hear me?”

He nods.

“Okay,” says Nott, keeping her hand on him, her ragged fingernails trailing to his shoulder to rest there. She’s done this before, he thinks. She’s done this to Caleb, kept him from falling off the edge of a cliff. Funny, Molly used to be better at keeping himself from falling off the edge. “Hand on me, there we go. Come on, open your eyes, it’s okay. You don’t have to meet mine, I know they can be kind of creepy.”

She says to the red-eyed tiefling. But Molly complies anyway, breathing out and opening his eyes. Just to make a point, he looks her right in the eye.

“Oh, right, red eyes,” says Nott. “You were freaking out, I was scared you’d be panicking again. Are you okay? What happened?”

“I might know who he was,” says Molly. “I think. Did he have just the one hand?”

“Um,” says Nott. “We. Ah. Cut his hand off.”

 _You did what,_ Molly doesn’t say, but he hopes it’s evident enough on his face that Nott will answer anyway. Sure enough, she adds, in a rush of words: “It was _really fucked up_ , but he did stalk Jester’s mom, but also we kinda sorta decomposed his hand right in front of him to get him to do the thing we wanted him to do, which was leave town and never go near Jester’s mom again and also take the blame for the part where we kicked his ass and freed the creature he was keeping captive in order to power the whole city.” She lets go of his shoulder, worrying at the bandages around her arms again. “What do you think?”

“Slow down, I barely got all that,” says Molly, head spinning as he tries to sort through Nott’s fast-paced explanation. “Well, I think I feel marginally less terrible about what I’m going to tell you.”

Nott narrows her eyes. “What is it?” she asks.

“I think,” says Molly, very quietly, “that I killed him.” He draws his knees up to his chest, feeling the weight of all these things his body has done without his permission press down on his shoulders once more as the words leave his mouth. First that memory Jester cleared up, and now this one, and he doesn’t even know if this memory is real or not. How many people are dead because some arsehole looked at Molly and thought he would make a good little puppet soldier? Maybe this Al Gore was a terrible person, but he’s not the person in the memory that Jester cleared, the one who’d been in his office ( _not a forest cabin he hadn’t been in a forest cabin fuck what other details has Molly missed_ ).

“Oh,” says Nott, then: “Fuck.”

 _Fuck_ is just about right, for this bloody mess they’ve found themselves in.

“Shit, now I feel even worse,” says Nott, and oh, right. _Right_ , her letter. Oh, no.

He grabs her by the shoulders and shakes his head. This mess he’s in isn’t her fault, she didn’t even know, none of them ever knew, and he has to—he has to tell her that. He opens his mouth, but the geas kicks in and he has to swallow his words back. He settles for miming a dagger driving into his chest, then pointing at her and shaking his head.

“You’re saying it’s not my fault,” says Nott.

He nods.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” says Nott.

Oh. Molly lets go of her shoulder, rubs the back of his head.

“We really have to stop blaming ourselves around you if that’s the first thing you think when we say we feel terrible,” says Nott, with a huff. “No, I just—what if she does come down on us? What if, fuck, what if she uses _you_ to do it?”

“Technically she already has,” says Molly, gesturing to the stitches holding the crossbow bolt hole in his dress closed. “But if it happens again, I know you’ll talk me down before I really hurt anyone. And if I _do_ get to that point…” He licks his lips, the memory of the glaive bubbling up despite his best efforts. “I only ask that you make it quick,” he says.

He knows it, when the magnitude of what he’s asking hits her. “You’re asking me to _kill you_?” she whispers.

“ _If_ shit goes to hell and there’s no pulling me back out,” says Molly, stressing the _if_. “You’re fast, you’re slippery. You’d make it quick and clean, and that’s about all I want. I’d rather die than go back to that, I don’t want to live that way _that much_.”

“If that happens,” says Nott, shaky, running a hand through her stringy, lank hair, “we’ll—we’ll find a way to bring you back. Third time’s the charm, right?”

“If there’s anything left of me to bring back,” says Molly. “And let’s be honest here, I highly doubt there would be, considering how my track record’s gone.” He taps his temple. “I’m lucky to even remember anything, spotty as my memory is. If you bring me back and I don’t remember anything—let me go. Don’t make the new guy have to act like me, they wouldn’t be able to anyway.” He’s barely even managing to act like he used to, head too full of the memory of blood and screaming.

Is he even still the same person as the one who died on Glory Run Road?

Fuck, this is no time for an existential crisis. He’ll ask that question when he feels less like a puppet on strings he can’t see.

Nott gnaws on her lip, and tugs on strands of green hair. “Okay,” she says, finally. “Okay. If anything really bad happens, and there’s no way we can pull you back out—I’ll make it quick.” Then her breath hisses out between her sharp, yellowing teeth. “But why ask me? Why not Beau, or Yasha, or Fjord, or anyone else? Don’t you trust them?”

“With my life,” says Molly. “With everything that I am, fucked up as that currently is. But I’d trust you with my death—you’re sneaky enough that I wouldn’t know where to look for you, I’d never see it coming. Everyone else would have to get up close to be effective, and in the worst-case scenario, I’d kill them. And believe me, I’d rather you shoot me dead than let me kill any of you.”

“There is Caleb,” Nott points out. “Why not him, either?”

“Right, ask him to burn me to death, what a fantastic idea,” Molly huffs. “I said _quick and clean_ , Nott, and that would just be one gigantic, bloody mess. Probably even literally.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” says Nott, frowning. “And with you two being _weird_ at each other—”

Molly places a finger on her lips and shakes his head, because that is the last thing he wants to talk about to Nott, what with how close she is to Caleb. Then he jerks a thumb over to the stairs leading down, and to punctuate that gesture, stands back up, dusting off his coat.

“Hey!” Nott calls after him, her feet skittering hurriedly towards him. “You know you’re not helping your case!”

He spins around on his heel, walking backward, and shakes his hands out in front of him in a downwards arc.

“I don’t even know what that _means_!” says Nott. Then she grabs hold of his sleeve. “Don’t go _backwards_ , Molly, you’ll fall down the stairs and break your neck,” she huffs. “And I might have promised to kill you if you ever flip out and there’s no chance of bringing you back out of it, but—I need you to promise me something too.”

Molly ticks an eyebrow up, but stops in his tracks anyway.

“Don’t do what you did again,” she says. “When you did that thing where you blind people, and you drew that fucker’s attention, and he killed you because you were barely even standing by that point?” Steel in her eyes, in her voice, in her spine. It’s strange, Molly’s never seen her straighten herself out like this, standing like her spine’s one of those Immovable Rods, fixing her golden eyes on someone with a calm certainty that seems so out of the blue, on her anxious little form. “ _Don’t do that,_ ” she says. “Don’t sacrifice yourself like that. It’s stupid and it hurts everyone and it makes them jumpy and scared and sad, and, so sue me, I don’t want you to die _again_. I love you. I love you and I love the rest of them, almost as much as I love Caleb.” She licks her lips. “Can you promise me that?”

Oh. “You’re the second person I’d be promising that to,” Molly says. _And the second person I will most likely disappoint by breaking it, because like fuck am I letting any of you die if I can help it,_ he doesn’t say. He’s asked enough of Nott for the day, asked her to stand by with a crossbow bolt with his name on it loaded, just in case. “But yes, all right. I won’t do it again. I’m in no hurry to die again, it sucked the first time around.”

“You literally just asked me to shoot you if you ever flipped out again,” Nott points out. “How—Why—This is hard, what did Caleb say to make you talk again?”

“ _Sag etwas_ , but I don’t know if that’ll work with you,” says Molly. “And—don’t open your mouth just yet, Nott, I need to keep talking—it’s _just in case_. I’m counting on all of you to bring me back, I _trust_ you’re all going to drag me back kicking and screaming no matter what. I don’t—I don’t actually want to die. I did it once before and I don’t want a repeat performance.” His hands come up, grasping at his shoulders, tugging at his coat. “But if it comes down to that, I don’t want to be the person who kills any of you either.”

Nott blinks up at him. “I don’t want to be the person who kills you again, either,” she says, and for a moment Molly fears he’s misstepped, somehow. Nott’s coming into her own, and he’d thought _maybe_ —but if asking her for something so horrifying means she’ll be set back then he has to take it back, has to play it off somehow.

He opens his mouth, shuts it again.

“But if I have to, I will,” says Nott. “But that’s an absolute last resort.” Then she pauses, and adds somewhat hurriedly: “ _Sag etwas._ ”

Molly opens his mouth again, then closes it and shakes his head. He mimes a slicing motion across his throat.

“Dammit, I really thought that would work,” she grumbles. Then she tugs on his coatsleeve. “Come on, let’s head down. They’re probably all starving by now.”

He gives her hand a tug right back, and fumbles in his coat for a moment. Then he pulls the borrowed dagger from his pocket and holds it out to her, hilt-first.

Nott stares at it, then up at him. “You’re sure?” she asks.

“I’m sure,” he says. “If I can hurt someone with a fork and a sewing needle? I’m not taking my chances with the dagger.”

She sighs, then takes it from him, putting it away into her pockets. “I’ll let you have it again if we ever get into trouble,” she says.


	30. doesn't have to be so dark and lonesome

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from The Shins' "It's Only Life".

Nott expects to see a lot of things at the table, when she and Molly finally come downstairs for breakfast. Caleb, for example, and Jester too. Beau, Fjord, Yasha, she expects their faces too at the table. Maybe not Yasha all that often, considering she’s off so often doing things that Nott is still pretty damn sure are Xhorhasian spy things, but when she’s there she’s always at breakfast too. Caduceus isn’t here, so she’s not surprised not to see his pink hair and calm smile at the table.

But _Verrin_? Verrin, sitting backwards in a chair? _Fuck no._

“What took you guys so long?” Jester huffs, as Nott and Molly come over to her side of the table. Verrin is already at the table, not quite close enough to be counted as part of the group, but she is stealing bits of bacon off the plate.

It’s a testament, Nott’s sure, to how much Beau wants to get into her pants that Verrin’s hand has gone unmolested for taking bits of her breakfast.

“We talked a little bit,” says Nott, clambering over Fjord and Beau ( _hey!_ ) to squeeze in beside Caleb. Frumpkin has reappeared in his lap, meowing gently as Caleb scratches the top of his head and not looking particularly tasty today. “About stuff. And things.”

“Yeah, we were just about to talk about the thing with the Dogs of Hell,” says Jester. “Did you know they’re super pissed at Rattlesnake now? Something about breaking his word to them.”

“They got in bed with a fucking snake, what the hell else did they expect?” says Verrin, mouth full. “He was gonna bite them in the ass sooner or later.”

“They asked us to do a favor for them,” says Fjord. “We haven’t agreed yet, we’ve gotta be on the same page here. What do we all think?”

There’s a murmur of uncertain answers around the table, except for Molly, who scribbles _wat kind???_ in his notebook, now practically glued onto his hand. Even more glued than Caleb currently is to his book.

“ _Ja_ , Mollymauk is right,” says Caleb. “Just what sort of favor did they ask of us? Or is that something we will only find out once we take it on?”

“They wanted us to help them find a couple of people who went missing,” says Fjord. “Wouldn’t give any more details beyond that, not until we could deliver our answer.”

Verrin stares at them, then shuts her mouth and chews. “It’s a bad idea,” she says, afterwards.

“We didn’t ask you,” says Yasha, acidly.

“I’m saying this as your fucking tour guide, _it’s a bad idea,_ ” says Verrin. “The hell are you even trying to do? I thought you just wanted to fix your friend over there.” She jerks a thumb over to Molly, who smiles tightly and waves a passing tavern maid over to their table. “What’s the Dogs of Hell got to do with that?”

“We wanna tread carefully with ‘em, and the rest of their buddies too, and we’re looking into this Rattlesnake so we can do what Lestra’s asking us,” says Fjord, drumming his fingers on the table. “We need information on him, and on whoever else he might decide to hire to protect his shipments, or the warehouse.”

“Information from the _Dogs_?” Verrin incredulously asks. “They’re fucking _idiots_ and they’ll sell themselves for a bone, what makes you think they’re any more reliable than some random kid off the street?”

“We don’t,” says Fjord. “We just need an in.”

“Lestra’s an in,” says Verrin. “Go talk to her. She hired you tourists in the first place anyway, she’s gonna want to know real fucking bad if you start getting in bed with the Dogs.”

“We were gonna do that after this,” says Beau, motioning to the plate. Nott quietly reaches over and grabs more bacon, stuffing it into her mouth before Beau can swat at her hand. “Hey!”

“Should’ve been faster,” Nott smugly says. It comes out _sh’ve b’f’ster_ instead, thanks to all the bacon in her mouth, and she sees Beau roll her eyes. Which, rude. She’s seen Beau do much worse than talk with her mouth full.

“We don’t pay you to tell us what to do,” Yasha mutters, her arms crossed, pointedly not looking at Verrin. Jester had been one thing, but it’s strange seeing jealousy on Yasha. Strange and kind of weirdly reassuring? It makes her seem less of a Xhorhasian spy, anyway. If she is a spy. Which Nott is not as sure of as she used to be, but hey, you never know, right?

“Silly me, I forgot,” Verrin mutters. “You don’t pay me to give a fuck about any of you, you just want me to tour you shits around.” She throws her hands out, her mouth turning up in a dark, sardonic smirk. “Fine! Just keep the booze money coming, I’ll bring you to wherever the fuck you wanna go. Want a dark alley to get stabbed in? Sure, I’ll even find you the fucker who could do it!”

Molly scribbles something in his notebook, then turns it around. _Shields grays is a step up from a dark ally,_ he’s written. _How bout that?_

Nott sucks in an involuntary breath. That’s where Janille is. That’s where Verrin’s _friend_ is, the one she’d lost to Astrid, and her throat closes up. What had Caleb said about how he decided his parents had to die? How long until Janille graduates? Does she consider Verrin family?

Nott unscrews the cap on her flask, and starts chugging. Molly glances sideways at her, then scribbles something down, passing it over to Nott as discreetly as possible. _She dosnt need to kno,_ she reads, before passing it back, dread bubbling in the back of her throat. Another sip, and it only barely calms down.

“Whaddaya want from the Shield’s Grace inn?” says Verrin, unmindful of the panic tying Nott’s guts into knots. “They’re booked up till next month.”

“We have a secret contact there,” says Jester. “We just need you to take me and Beau—”

“Oh, I think Molly has something to say about Beau,” says Nott, seizing an opportunity, “don’t you, Molly?”

“I was actually thinking about roping _Fjord_ into exploring, not Beau,” says Molly, the pencil tapping against the table as the barmaid finally comes back over with a fully-loaded tray delicately balanced on the tips of her fingers. “We could hit up Lestra’s. I haven’t met her yet, she seems like _such_ a nice girl.”

Jester pouts at Molly. If it were anyone else, Nott’s sure, they’d get more than that, but Jester’s pout twitches, almost like she’s fighting a grin. Molly doesn’t seem to bother fighting his own grin, and something in Nott’s chest eases at the sight of it. Good, he’s happy. After their conversation, he deserves some cheer.

“Wait, you’re _what_ ,” says Fjord, thrown.

Beau narrows her eyes at Molly, as the barmaid sets the tray down in front of them. “She’ll play you like a fiddle,” she says. “No, I’m coming with you.”

Molly rolls his eyes, and writes something in his notebook before he passes it over to Beau. Nott screws the cap of her flask back on, just in time to see Caleb and Yasha stealing bits of bacon off Beau’s plate. Good for Caleb. He’s too skinny, he needs to eat way more. Come to think of it, Beau’s distracted, so Nott just quietly reaches over to steal the bacon _and_ a bit of chicken too. The chicken she discreetly deposits onto Caleb’s plate.

“ _Hey_ ,” huffs Fjord, but he doesn’t stop her. “I’ll keep Molly out of trouble, it’s fine.”

Molly’s scarred eyebrow goes up, as well as a corner of his mouth. It looks very much like a cocky smirk, to Nott.

Fjord sighs, and says, “It’s been seven months, you don’t think I’ve gotten any better at keeping us out of messes?”

Molly places his palm flat on the table. Then he raises his hand up just a few inches higher.

“He says slightly,” Yasha says.

“A little bit higher, probably,” Nott says, raising her own hand until the space between her palm and the table is about as tall as a creeping mouse. She thinks. She squints at her own hand, because it’s just become two—no, three.

“Well, that just ain’t fair, I managed to captain a ship for a while,” Fjord mutters, but he’s smiling, small and genuine, a tusk peeking through.

“And he did _great_ at it,” says Jester, butting into the conversation and pointing a piece of sugared bread at Nott. “And at being a quartermaster too, at least until everything went completely nuts.”

“Which I still don’t regret,” says Caleb, munching on some bacon and sipping at his ale. Good. Nott sneaks a little more meat onto his plater, just in case. “But _ja_ , I think in this case—Fjord has already met Lestra, and he does not have history with her from before we came to Lynbroke. Keeping him with Mollymauk keeps him away from—from our contact, and her interest.”

“I’m right here, I can hear you,” Fjord says.

Verrin’s eyes fix on Caleb for a moment, like she’s trying to figure out just who this contact is from his face alone. Nott’s hand wanders to her shortsword, but she doesn’t draw it just yet. They really have to keep an eye on Verrin, if she has ties to Janille and Astrid and the Soltryce Academy. And that’s not even throwing her weird blood shit into account. So maybe it’s not the same kind as Molly’s. She’d still recognized Molly’s weird blood shit, and there’s no telling what else she might know.

Verrin doesn’t do anything. Instead her gaze just shifts away to the bar.

Like that little shift in her gaze is going to deter a detective like Nott.

“I _guess_ ,” says Jester, mock-reluctantly. “I’ll take Beau, then! And Nott.”

Beau sighs. “Fine,” she says. “Someone’s gotta keep you two out of trouble, make sure what happened in Barrowtown doesn’t happen again. God knows we don’t need _that_ on top of all the other shit we’re dealing with.”

“Barrowtown happened _once_ ,” says Jester. “We’re not gonna get caught again!”

“Barrowtown was on me, and I promise what happened there is not going to happen again,” Nott says, with all the certainty she can muster. Which is a lot, for now. Thank you, alcohol.

“I suppose that leaves me with Yasha,” says Caleb.

Yasha nods, and says, “I’ve got something to do, anyway, if we’re going to do this favor for the Dogs. Which—we… _are_ going to accept, right? We’ll have to go meet them, if we do.”

“Don’t see if we’ve really got a choice in the matter,” says Fjord. “Anyone got something to say against it?”

A chorus of _no_ s rolls around the table. Molly shakes his head, after a moment, but his lips are pressed thin and tight. That’s no surprise, he’s never been a big fan of staying in one place for too long, and they’re wading very deep into Lynbroke’s affairs for some diamond dust. But he’s worth it. They’re not going to lose him again. Nott won’t allow it.

Verrin rolls her eyes. “You’re all idiots,” she says.

Nott pushes a mug of ale towards her, ignoring an indignant squawk from Beau. Verrin narrows her eyes at her, but after a moment she grabs the ale and tips her head back, pouring the dark liquor down her throat with the ease of an alcoholic.

“Shield’s Grace, huh,” she says once most of it’s gone down, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Fine. Get the hell up. We leave in five minutes, and I’m not going to wait beyond that.” Her eyes flick between the rest of the Nein. “The less I know about whatever bullshit plan you dumbshits have with the Dogs of Hell, the better,” she says. “I don’t want to get caught in the fallout. Not for all the money in the world.”

And she stands up, pushes the chair back into place, and strides away from them.

Molly writes, _I still dont like her very mutch but she has a point lets try not to get any1 caut in this who shudnt be._

“We can _try_ ,” says Jester.

Considering their track record, Nott kind of doubts they’re going to succeed.

\--

“So,” says Fjord, as he and Molly walk down the street, away from the inn and deeper into the ever-growing, ever-colorful festival. There’s a building crowd on the sides of the street, and Fjord can see, off in the distance, a motley parade with a bodiless dragon’s head, made of paper and wood, coming down the street. At any other time, he’s sure they’d all be happily throwing themselves right into this festival, more than they already are.

But this isn’t any other time, and the reason why is walking right beside him.

“You wanted me to accompany you,” Fjord says, slowly. “Why?”

Molly breathes out slow. Before they’d all parted ways, promising to meet back up in the afternoon, Caleb had taken Molly aside to say a couple words. Fjord hadn’t heard much of their conversation, but he’d seen Molly nod and rest his forehead against Caleb’s, shivering a little as Caleb said _something_ apparently magical. Whatever it had been, Molly’d skipped back to him, and when Fjord had asked, he’d grinned and _said_ , “I can do this with you.”

This, where Molly can only talk to Caleb and someone who Caleb essentially passes him off to—It’s fucking shit, is what it is. They all know it. Caleb knows it, Molly knows it, and Fjord feels his gut twisting too, because this fate is the worst kind of fate he can imagine for Molly: bound to speak only to whoever’s essentially holding his leash. But it’s what they _have_ , and they’ll have to work with it.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he hears Lorenzo’s awful fucking laugh.

Molly isn’t skipping anymore, but if there’s anything weighing him down because of this, it’s not noticeable. “I missed you,” he says, turning on his heel and shrugging. His coat flares as he turns. “And I wanted to talk to you, and I wanted to visit this Lestra for myself, and I figured I could kill two birds with one stone. That’s why.”

“What did you want to talk to me about?” says Fjord.

“Everything I missed out on,” says Molly. “Especially about this—what’s his name, Al Gore?”

A lump, somehow, spontaneously pops into existence in Fjord’s throat at the name. He doesn’t regret the lengths they went to, booting Algar out, but still. “Algar,” he says, choking the name out through the bile in his throat. “ _Fuck_ that guy. He was harassing Jester’s mom.” Then he pauses, and adds, when he sees Molly lightly tapping at his throat, “Uh, why do you wanna talk about him?”

“I don’t, is the thing,” says Molly, sourly, “but I remembered something.” The cheer seems to leave him, all of a sudden, and from one breath to another a weight seems to crash down on his shoulders. He looks around, then steps closer to Fjord, close enough to whisper in his ear: “I think I’m the one who killed him.”

Fjord stops in his tracks.

Then he grabs Molly by the arm and all but yanks him into a nearby alley, further away from the gathering crowds.

“Back up,” he says, once he’s sure no one’s going to be listening in on them, “okay, what do you mean, _you killed him_? We made sure he’d be _alive_. What did you do?”

“I don’t know what I did, not for sure,” Molly says. “Honestly _I’m_ not the one who wanted him dead, just the tool they used to kill him.” He shivers. “Nott told me about what he did. What _you_ did. But I want more details. What happened with his hand? What did he know that someone wanted to silence him before he could blab?”

Ah. “About his hand,” says Fjord, “she wasn’t lying, we did cut it off. Kinda had to.” And he tells him the whole story: about how they’d been asked to tell Algar to back off, how they broke in to find an enslaved being that called himself Zsundie, how Algar kept him under control. How Nicodranas apparently _ran_ on Zsundie’s power, enough that cutting off Algar’s bracelet hand would cripple the city. How the Mighty Nein forced him into exile, out of the city, away from Marion Lavorre.

Molly makes a soft, terrible noise.

“What do you think?” Fjord asks.

“I definitely don’t regret it,” says Molly. “I’m not happy about the circumstances, I wish I had a say in the whole thing because I would’ve humiliated him and kept him alive, but he sounds like he needed a good kick in the arse, at least. But I think I have an idea why someone might think he knows a bit too much. He knew that the city was being powered by someone who’d been forced into it. He might’ve known some other nasty secrets that no one wanted getting out, not the Empire, not the—Clovis Conchord, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, you got it,” says Fjord. “No, just Zsundie alone is something no one wants to hear about already. But he told us there was another like him at Port Damali.” He steps away from Molly, running a hand through his hair, stomach churning. In the back of his mind, the darkness of the Sour Nest’s dungeons still looms large. So does Zsundie’s coldly furious eyes, staring at Algar, wanting him dead. “He might’ve known if there were any more. And that’s not even getting into what else he knew, in his position.” He purses his lips. “You got any idea why you were sent after him?”

“I have no idea,” says Molly. Then he pauses. “No, that’s not true,” he says, thoughtfully. “Astrid’s focus was on Xhorhasian elements. She heard someone of interest had been spotted in Nicodranas, but they’d gotten away. And if you framed him, she might’ve assumed the worst about him.” He smiles, sardonic. “The worst from her perspective, anyway. And that’s without bringing the Conchord in, they’d be very pissed off about someone who’s been proven to be untrustworthy still being alive to talk.”

“Shit,” Fjord mutters.

Molly nods, the humorless smile vanishing off his face. He leans against a wall, one hand rubbing over his shoulder. Doesn’t say anything.

“They sent you after us,” says Fjord. “Put Caleb’s old buddy on the job too. Why? What have we got that the Empire wants us?”

“If it helps, it’s not really the Mighty Nein anyone in the Empire wants,” says Molly. “Nobody can even agree on the name or on how many members we really have. They just want, what did she say,” and he crooks his fingers as if to quote Astrid, “ _the Xhorhasian woman_. The rest of us don’t matter.”

A cold nugget of dread drops into Fjord’s stomach, and spreads outward into his limbs. “Yasha,” he translates.

Molly nods again, and his eyes have gone steel-hard.

“So you came after us on her orders to get Yasha?”

“Not her orders, the other one’s,” says Molly. “Whatsisname, the one whose face Caleb all but burned off. Yonnah, right? He wanted to one-up Astrid, and he _loved_ irony. The irony of Astrid’s pet project being instrumental in his one-upping her? He couldn’t resist that.”

Pet project. _Pet project_. Bile rises in Fjord’s throat.

“Fjord?” says Molly, worriedly, tilting his head. There’s not as much jewelry adorning his horns as there used to be.

Fjord lets out a breath, and almost reaches up to his mouth to start picking at his tusks, before he remembers who he’s with. “I’m sorry,” he says, dropping his hand. “And _yes_ , I know. I don’t need to be sorry about it. Doesn’t mean I’m not—your death happened on my watch. So did everything else that you went through. All of that’s a black mark on me, because you’re one of mine and I got you killed.” His tongue pushes, absently, at a growing tusk. “I’d like to make that right, if I can,” he says. “Will you let me?”

“We all really have to stop this blaming ourselves,” Molly says, contemplatively, “because I’m pretty sure _I’ll_ start doing it too, hanging around you all the time.” He twists a lock of plum-dark hair around his finger, looking for all the world like he’s casually leaning against a wall, discussing the weather with a friend. “There isn’t anything you, personally, have to make right to me,” he says. “So far as I’m concerned, you’ve done nothing wrong that you need to make right. You’re not the one who shoved a glaive through my chest, and you’re not the one who went around enslaving people. And you’re certainly not _Astrid_.”

And he does have a point, is the thing. Fjord can’t deny that. And he can’t deny that this absolution is Molly’s to give, considering it’s his death that Fjord blames himself for. He can’t deny the logic in Molly’s words, or the forgiveness in them either.

But tell that to the guilt that’s curled around his heart, cold pinpricks digging in with every beat. _Your fault, your fault, your fault,_ it says. _You are the leader, you should be better than this. Look what’s happened to Molly because of you: dead, then worse than dead._

“You’ve got a damn good point,” he says, out loud. “You been arguing about this a lot?”

“I’ve been rooming with Caleb,” says Molly, by way of explanation. “And—I’m not blind, Fjord. I know what it looks like when someone’s taking on too much blame.” He sighs. “I knew the risks,” he says, “I knew my chances going in. I took them anyway. I lost. None of that’s on you, or Jester, or Yasha, or Caleb, or anyone else, and no one could’ve thought I was anywhere other than lost and confused in a forest somewhere, at worst.”

“I’m listening,” says Fjord. “You’re not—You’re not wrong, Molls.” At worst, he’d figured Molly’d fallen in with another group, forgotten about the Mighty Nein, and in the darkness of the early morning he’d sometimes wondered if that wasn’t for the best. _But you still should’ve looked harder._ “It’s just—it can’t be helped, feeling like this. Like I got you killed.” It had alleviated a little on the sea with so much to outrun, had started to scab over as time wore on, but Molly’s return has ripped it open again. “What do you think?”

“I think that’s amazingly heroic, and amazingly stupid, considering what I’ve already said,” says Molly. “If we’re going by your logic, Jester and Yasha got me killed too.”

“They _didn’t,_ ” Fjord snaps, reflexively, before it clicks. Molly isn’t _wrong_. Jester and Yasha had been trapped in a cage too, unable to help when they heard the fight. They’re not at fault for what happened, no matter what they might think of it. Hell, if he follows the logic that’s been presented down, Molly’s responsible for his own death too, and then for everything that happened afterwards, and that’s not something Fjord can accept.

Doesn’t do anything for the little bit of him that’s still saying it’s his fault, for taking Jester and Yasha beyond the alarm spell. But it’s a good reminder, for when that little bit is not so little.

Molly runs a hand through his hair, absently. He looks wrong, without what had seemed like half a ton of jewelry hanging off his horns. He doesn’t say anything, but he smiles tiredly at Fjord, like he can tell anyway, and gives a small nod.

“We missed you,” says Fjord.

Another nod. Molly points at himself, then at Fjord, and traces the line of a smile over his mouth, wider than the one he’s wearing. He’s happy to be here, too, with Fjord and the rest of them. Then he pauses, tugs on the crown charm hanging from his horn, and casts a longing glance out of the alleyway.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you wanna enjoy the festival before we get down to business,” says Fjord, stepping forward and hooking his arm through Molly’s. For a second Molly goes still, and he wonders if he’s overstepped some boundary or something. Molly hadn’t cared about boundaries before, had draped himself over everything and everyone with no sense that personal space even existed, but it’s been seven months of whatever the hell that Astrid did to him, and Fjord’s still trying to figure out what new and terrible things have dug into Molly’s head, here to stay.

Then Molly laughs, a soft thing, and relaxes against his side.

Together, they walk out into the sunlight, and back into the crowds to watch the parade.


	31. lift off this blindfold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Coldplay's "Us Against the World".
> 
> Christmas is coming, so if I end up missing more than a week in December, it's because of the following: Yuletide, exchange fic, and family reunions!
> 
> (also: blanket permission to make art of basically anything from this fic, just link me. pls. I’m starving for art.)
> 
> 2/1/19: edits made to German translation, thanks to steelneena for the original German and CherryKip for the edited version! also, edits made to bring story more in line with canon, so spoilers up until ep 49.

There were never any festivals in the tribe, when Yasha was still a part of it.

Okay, that’s something of a lie. There had been festivals, but they were never something Yasha or any other member of her tribe would be allowed to attend. The closest thing had been marriage celebrations around the campfire, and those were always quick affairs, with only slashes of red to symbolize the binding of blood. A world as colorful and decorated as the streets of Lynbroke are now—the only experience she’s ever had with something like that came with the circus, and that’s, what, over a year ago now? Time flies, she supposes, as fast as an eagle taking wing. As fast as an arrow streaking across the sky. As fast as a circus performer shuffling cards in his hands.

They do have something to do, her and Caleb, besides get lost in the midst of the festival. He’s better at talking to people while under pressure than she is, and the Dogs are certainly going to put quite a lot of pressure on them. All this for some diamond dust.

But it’s Molly, and no one besides the Storm Lord deserves Yasha’s best efforts more. She only hopes that the thunder does not call her away again, not right now.

She chances a glance upward as Caleb’s bargaining with some merchant over the price of some chalk. Frumpkin, currently draped over her shoulders, meows contentedly, and she reaches up to scratch lightly behind his ears. No clouds in the sky today. _He_ has no need of her just yet, and she can only breathe a sigh of relief.

Caleb emerges from the stall, carrying not only the chalk, but a blue scarf as well. “Do you think this will fit Beauregard?” he asks.

Yasha blinks at him. That’s a strange question to ask her. “I guess?” she ventures. “She does like blue a lot. And she did complain a little about the cold a while back, while we were on watch together.” In truth Beau had grumbled about the lack of fur in her monk robes, and Yasha had held her arm out and said that warm bodies could help, probably. Beau had burrowed into her side, and her warmth felt nice on Yasha’s body.

Caleb nods. “If you give this to her, she will not complain as much,” he says.

“You could also give it to her as well,” Yasha suggests.

“Ah, no, it will not—she wouldn’t accept it from me,” says Caleb, quickly. It’s not quite true, and Yasha frowns. She’s seen Caleb give Beau things that she’d taken to immediately, as well as things she’d given back for one reason or another. It must be a bad day for his self-loathing again, if he seems to think Beau wouldn’t accept his gifts. “It wouldn’t carry the same significance. No, I think she would like it if it came from you.”

“But—I’m not the one who bought it,” says Yasha. “You are. You don’t need a middleman.” She sighs. “Besides, she’s accepted gifts from you before. It’s okay.”

Caleb twitches a little. Then he sighs. “She will think that I am courting her if I give her this, I’ve told her of the Zemnian tradition of gift-giving for suitors,” he says, a little too quick. “And I am _not_ trying to court her, she is like a sister to me. This is yours to give, Yasha.” And he thrusts the scarf at her.

“But she’ll think _I’m_ courting her,” Yasha says.

Caleb stares at her. “Are you not courting her,” he says, flatly. His eye is twitching even more now.

“Um,” says Yasha. “Well. Sort of.” She’d hoped to win that sword for her, although she’s pretty sure Beau’s missed _why_. “But I thought, well, you know. She’s impressed by winning contests. I wanted to get her attention that way.” It had worked with Zuala, after all.

“If you flex at her she would be impressed,” says Caleb, shaking the scarf in front of her, “she is not hard to please.” He taps her wrist, and she holds it out, letting him wind the scarf around her arm. “The gift is only to make it known that you are courting her. It must be something she can wear, or use, but it is not—it is not like a friend’s gift.”

“How can you tell the difference?” says Yasha. After all, her book is from Molly, but neither of them feel like courting each other.

Caleb chews on his bottom lip. Then he sighs. “It’s—When a friend gives you something, it doesn’t need to be thoughtful,” he says, slowly, like he’s trying to collect his thoughts into something coherent. “It may even just be pragmatic, because he certainly cannot wield a weapon like she can, or because she does not have any use for a book but he does. A courting gift is—a little more special, I think.”

“How special?”

“You are trying to make her see you as something more than a friend,” Caleb says. “It can be pragmatic, but that is not, and should never be, the primary reason why you are giving it. You give because you want them to have it, because if they have it then it means they’ve seen you, they know you are there, and whenever they see or wear or use the gift they will think of you, and they will smile. And that’s all you want, for them to smile.” He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, looking down at his hands, and says, “At least that was what I was told when I was younger.”

Yasha looks down at the scarf, wrapped around her arm. In her mind’s eye, Beau winds it around her neck and smiles, a _real_ smile, soft and small and crooked, a chipped tooth showing. Yasha smiles down at the scarf. “I think I got it,” she says.

Then something else flickers in her mind’s eye: Molly, with his notebook, the soft leather of the cover, his pencil scratching over the page. He smiles down at it, the same way Beau does in her fantasy. His eyes glitter with delight.

She looks to Caleb, sharply. “Caleb?”

“ _Ja?_ ”

“Are you courting Molly?”

Caleb sputters and stammers, eyes wide as he tugs at the ends of his scarf, at his bandages, at his sleeves. “Ah— _nein,_ no, _Ich werb ihm nicht um, das ist falsch—Er kann nicht sprechen, ohne einen Befehl, und—Sowirso, er ist mein Freund, und ich wird einen schlechteres Friend, ob ich interessiert bin, und da bin ich nicht ,_ he deserves so much better—”

“Caleb,” says Yasha, cutting into his rant by grabbing hold of his shoulders and shaking him. “ _Caleb_. I don’t understand, what are you saying?”

Caleb shakes his head, blinking. “Ah— _es tut mir Leid,_ Yasha, I—I am not courting him.” He runs a hand through his hair, gnawing on his lip, and Yasha only manages not to name him a liar then and there because—well, he’s _terrified_. And she likes Caleb. She doesn’t want to scare him all that much, he deserves better than that from her. “He is—not in the best state of mind for me to court him,” says Caleb. “And even if I wanted to, I would be a horrible suitor for him. He deserves better than the likes of me.”

Doesn’t she know how _that_ feels like. Zuala had seemed so, so beautiful, so—not for the likes of Yasha, and yet. And _yet_. Yasha holds on to his shoulders, but relaxes her grip so Caleb can wriggle out of her grasp, if he wanted to. “Good,” she says, “I would’ve knocked some sense into you if you said you were.” Then she pauses, frowns, and says, “So what’s the notebook for?”

“I wanted to help him talk,” says Caleb. “A notebook was the next best thing. That’s all. And—I thought it looked nice, when I saw it, I figured it would be something he would like.”

Yasha pauses, running his words through her head. “So you wanted him to look at it, smile, and think of you,” she says. She glances to Frumpkin, and the cat is staring at his wizard with what seems to be a note of confusion.

“ _Nein,_ ” says Caleb, pulling away from her grip. “I just—he is my friend too, Yasha. I think we are, anyway, him and me.” He sighs, scratching slightly at his forearms. “You saw him smile, when I gave it to him. It was good, I hadn’t seen it in a while.”

Frumpkin meows from his perch on Yasha’s shoulders, a judgmental note underneath it. Yasha can’t really sympathize, she’s more confused than judgmental. “If you are not courting him, but you gave it to him to see him smile,” she begins, trying to put the threads together in her head.

“Uh,” says Caleb. He looks around them as she speaks, then says, “Oh, look! I think those are the Dogs of Hell you were speaking of, _ja_?” He points in one direction, and Yasha looks to see a goliath in dark leather armor, a tattoo of a dog surrounded by flames on his cheek. A wicked-looking mace is slung over his back, and on his hip is a sheathed dagger with a hilt fashioned to look like a dragon’s head.

Yeah, she’s seen him before, last night. He’d been sharpening that dagger of his and staring balefully at the three of them. “Yes,” she says. She strides forward, pauses, then turns to Caleb once more. “We’ll talk about this later,” she says.

“I look forward to it,” Caleb mutters, averting his gaze. She’s fairly certain he’s not actually looking forward to it, but they have to clear up what he and Molly are to each other. She doesn’t want either of them to get hurt, dancing around each other the way they are now. Molly is—well, he isn’t fragile, Yasha’s seen him weather worse heartbreaks, but after the past seven months, she doesn’t want to see him have to go through another.

And then there’s the web of spells they’re trying to untangle.

A memory bubbles up from the back of her mind as well: Caleb and Fjord standing over an altar, their palms bleeding into the ocean water. She does not doubt that Caleb cares for them all, and deeply—but there is something he’s keeping back, something that could hurt Molly if Caleb isn’t careful with himself. Hurt them all, even.

Molly hasn’t always been very careful, with the people he spends the night with. He’d gotten better as time went on in choosing, and in a pinch, even in the early days of their friendship, she’d counted on his ability to cut or talk his way out of problems. This, though—this isn’t just spending the night. She won’t claim to be more experienced than he is, not in this, but this is—this is his _heart_ he’s giving.

And she likes Caleb, she really does. He’s kind, he tries to be helpful, he’s good, but maybe he hasn’t completely left that boy behind, the boy who’d pushed a cart up to the door of his parents’ house and set a fire that would consume him as well as his family.

Yasha sidesteps two young men passing by, one with white hair and gloves hiding stiff fingers, the other with a mass of red curls, both of them eating what looks like a pile of colored snow. It’s strange, she hadn’t known one could eat snow. Maybe they do something to the snow here to make it palatable?

Frumpkin mews, butting his head against her cheek. Yasha pulls him down from her shoulders and shifts her grip on him so she’s holding him in one arm. It conveniently leaves her other arm free to go for her sword, just in case. She very much hopes she doesn’t need to, because it would cause a commotion, and they’d get in even hotter water than they already are in.

Caleb catches up to her, quickening his pace in order to do so. “Do you know this man?” he asks.

“No,” she says. “We didn’t really talk with anyone else, besides their leader and the one Jester healed.” She pauses, then adds, “But I did intimidate them a little bit. He’ll probably remember me.” She tugs at the scarf, absently, notes that the man hasn’t seemed to see them just yet. He’s too absorbed in whatever he’s doing, talking to some merchant selling toys. He hands some gold over, and the merchant gives him a wooden duck. Then he turns and starts walking.

Yasha glances at Caleb, and jerks her head in the man’s direction. Together, they start walking.

\--

The Shield’s Grace inn is in one of the ritzier districts, which means that along with the rising tides of tourists and merchants and the rising quality of goods and decorations come the rising presence of Crownsguard on the street. Under a statue of Lady Margaret made entirely out of roses and vines is a man in full armor, smoking casually. By the stall selling bouquets of roses and lilies and snapdragons sits a woman with a stern face, also armored, her eyes seemingly trained on a book. Over there, underneath a sign for the Dragon’s Booty, is a nervous young man in plain clothes whose eyes keep darting towards alleyways where a criminal could come out.

And all around them are the crowds—it’s fucking _hard_ just getting onto the sidewalk, Beau finds, because they’re just so jammed with people. Every step is a risk, every movement is a pain in her ass (and, more literally, her ribs). On the road are _parade floats_ , and they’re fancier and crazier than the ones Beau’s ever seen before by far. Someone’s rigged some sort of contraption up for the back of them so that they don’t need horses or a fuckload of people to push them along—the only thing they need are wheels and a driver.

Jester whispers, “This is _so cool_ ,” as a float _put-put_ s past them. Beau can’t really argue with that. Just that one float alone is impressive as hell, depicting Lady Margaret in full armor, riding atop her white horse, staff in one hand and a hand on the jolt of the sword strapped to her back. It’s only a statue, but the armor practically shines in the sun, and from afar it almost looks like the woman’s been frozen in time.

“This is _awesome_ ,” Nott whispers, reverent, eyes wide like a kid on her birthday being treated to fantastic gifts. She’s perched atop Jester’s shoulders, and the two of them seem almost stuck fast to the ground, jaws slack and eyes wide with delight. Beau can sympathize. God _damn_ , rich people are terrible, but they throw the best parties.

Verrin says, a little louder than usual from her location at the back of the crowd, “If you’re done gawking? We still got an inn to hit.”

“We weren’t _gawking_ , we were admiring,” says Jester, but she shoulders her way past the crowds, Nott on her shoulders like a champion. Beau follows in her wake, delivering sharp elbows to all who stand in her way. “And it’s a party! Why aren’t you joining in?”

“Because I fucking live here and I’ve seen this party before,” says Verrin, unscrewing the cap of her flask and chugging. Her lip’s split, and there’s a purpling bruise just below her eye. She’s so fucking hot. Beau licks her lips, tilts her head up somewhat, and tosses her hair.

“Yeah, seen one parade, seen ‘em all,” she says, casually.

“No you haven’t,” says Nott. “No one’s ever done the—the thing! With the—you noticed they had this contraption, right? Attached to the back? I bet nobody’s ever done _that_ before!”

“It’s been a thing for like, three years now,” says Verrin. “Main attraction of the parades right there. Watch ‘em move all by their own fucking selves.” She takes another sip, her eyes darting around the crowds, catching sight of the same Crownsguard that Beau saw. At least Beau’s sure of it, judging by how Verrin’s lips thin, how she screws the cap back on and shoves the flask into a pocket. “Trust me, the novelty wears off. Now come on, there’s too many guards just fucking ‘round the place here.”

“Yeah, noticed them,” says Beau. She nods to the kid near the Dragon’s Booty, who’s now shifting his weight from one foot to the other, chewing on his bottom lip. “He’s the most obvious.”

“If they’re sending out the greener recruits, they’re spread pretty thin,” says Verrin. She jerks a thumb over to a nearby alleyway, unguarded, and says, “This way. You want the Shield’s Grace? This is the way there that’s not as crowded as the Nine Hells.”

She strides forward, elbowing people out of the way. Beau follows some distance behind her, with Jester falling in beside her and Nott still riding on Jester’s shoulders, her hands on Jester’s horns to keep herself from falling off.

Jester says, very quietly, “We can’t let her get into the inn, if her friend is there.”

“She doesn’t give a shit about what we do, she’ll take us up to the inn’s entrance and leave us there,” Beau says, keeping an eye on Verrin as she leads them into a dark alleyway, a little less grimy and graffiti-decorated than the other alleyways Beau’s been down so far in this town. So far Verrin doesn’t seem to be paying them any attention, beyond occasionally glancing over her shoulder to check if they’re still there.

“Maybe her friend isn’t too far gone,” says Nott, her voice low. “She hasn’t graduated yet, right? Maybe we can talk sense into her, with Verrin helping out. Talk her down.” She huffs out a breath. “Maybe we can keep her from ending up like Caleb. Or Astrid.”

Beau purses her lips. “Either that or she’ll flip like Molly does,” she says. “We don’t know for sure. We’ve only got Caleb and Molly as resources, and Molly can’t remember shit while Caleb broke away ten years ago.”

“Verrin isn’t really a bad person,” Jester says. “She’s super fucked up but so’re we. And if we take her with us inside to see her friend—Nott, they argued the last time they saw each other, maybe they don’t want to see each other for a while.”

“It’s been a while,” says Nott. “Caleb said that he and his friends were graduating when they—um, burned their bridges.” It’s a surprising moment of tact from her, of all people. Fjord would be proud, Beau’s sure. “She’s on her break. We’ve got a chance.”

“Yeah, and when did Caleb say he saw his parents planning to topple the Empire, again?” Beau asks. “And that’s if we’re assuming that Astrid’s following the pattern Caleb laid out. For all we know, she already screwed around with Verrin’s friend’s memory.”

“And we don’t know if Verrin came out of it without her memory getting messed with either,” Jester points out. “What if they meet up again and suddenly we have to deal with _two_ dead bodies instead of one?”

Beau shivers. That—is a possibility, actually, now that she thinks about it. The Academy’s willing enough to brainwash students and enemies of the Empire alike for their own purposes, after all, and crazy enough to stick crystals in their arms too. Verrin might be walking around with words of her own in her head, words that could turn her into a blank-faced murder puppet. Maybe it’s not even limited to words.

Gods, she and Yasha had _talked to Ikithon_. Her stomach roils. It hadn’t been that long a conversation, he hadn’t had time to do anything to them, but—god, he could’ve. And it would be as easy as snapping his fingers.

“Let’s not let her meet—Tiffany,” says Beau, noting that Verrin’s thrown a glance their way. “Seems like that could run a lot of ways, and we have no way of predicting which way it’ll go.”

Nott blows a strand of greasy hair out of her face. “Okay,” she says, reluctantly. “I could distract her away?”

“Or I could,” says Beau, casually.

Jester purses her lips, like she’s thinking it over. “Nott, you come with me,” she says. “We’re the best detectives apart, but we’re even better together.” She pokes Beau’s shoulder, and says, “You distract her. I think she likes you way better than anyone else, anyway, including me _and I healed her_.”

“I’m just that good,” says Beau, flexing a little. She’s not— _practicing_ how to casually flex, of course not. Just ‘cause Verrin puts the “hot” in “hot mess” and Beau wouldn’t object to a fun roll in the hay with her under better circumstances where everything is fine, god. Beau’s a good decision-maker. Or, anyway, she makes way better decisions _now_ than she used to.

“Beau?” Nott says, cutting into her thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t tell us any details,” says Nott, with the tone of someone who’s not liking the prospect of hearing anything even approaching flirting from a family member.

“Ignore her, after this, _tell me everything_ ,” says Jester. “But don’t tell Nott.”

“Hey, assholes,” calls Verrin, poking her head out from the turn fifteen feet behind them, “you’re going the wrong fucking way!”


	32. all that i want is to wake up fine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Paramore's "Hard Times".
> 
> no chapter next week! it CHRISTMAS, and I'll be focusing on some other projects, so keep an eye out for those. we'll be back on January 2, with the continuing adventures of the Mighty Nein in Lynbroke.
> 
> cw for a panic attack from "Death in the future, huh? Fuck." to "Molly’s heart stops hammering quite so hard against his chest".

Fjord stops near a vendor selling various knick-knacks, and says, with a sweep of his hand, “Got any preferences?”

“What?” says Molly, halfway through a deep-fried, honey-glazed chicken drumstick.

“Any preferences for what you wanna wear?” says Fjord, gesturing again, and Molly glances at the halfling vendor and their goods: racks and shelves of jewelry, charms, baubles of all kinds. Some look incredibly expensive, glittering in the morning light. Others he can tell just from a glance alone are costume jewelry at best. He wants as many of them on him as possible, and he wants so badly that it steals his breath away.

He’d be a glittering mess, he knows. Stealth would be a _nightmare_ , people would be able to catch sight of him with charms and jewelry on his horns and around his neck and decorating his fingers. He’s already at a heavy disadvantage, he’s a heavily-tattooed lavender tiefling. And he’s not—jewelry is reserved for the living, for those who aren’t empty and hollowed out shells, nameless and broken.

 _But I’m not empty,_ Molly thinks, suddenly, and seizes on that thought. He’s alive. He isn’t an empty, hollow thing, he’s _alive_ , therefore he deserves baths and jewelry and hugs and a good night’s sleep. And he has a name. _I’m Mollymauk Tealeaf, Molly to my friends._ No one can change that, not even wizards with memory-modifying spells.

“The red ones bring out my eyes nicely,” he says to Fjord, almost defiant in how he tilts his head upward, “but if they look glittery enough or tacky enough or both, I want it on me yesterday.” He punctuates this by taking a bite out of his drumstick, and makes a mental note to go find the lady who was selling this later.

He steps inside after Fjord, making sure to keep his greasy, sticky hands off the merchandise. Fjord, to his credit, follows all that Molly said, and even throws in a ring depicting the Platinum Dragon’s symbol and a crescent moon earring.

Molly reaches up with his free hand to the charms dangling from his horns now: Jester’s crescent moon and Nott’s little crown. He wouldn’t have been allowed to keep them, two weeks ago. They would’ve been ripped from his grasp like everything else he’d had. That seems to be everything the Empire does—take, and take, and _take_ until there’s no more left, and then take some more anyway.

His thumb rubs over the crescent moon. A pinprick of guilt stabs into his heart. He steps back and looks up at the sky, but it’s a bright spring day. The moon isn’t out yet.

Where—Fuck, where does he stand with the Moonweaver now? He wishes he knew. He wishes he had a better line of communication to her than his cards and his faith, because all the first is giving him is the Death card and the second’s on shaky ground. Not her fault, not really, he just doesn’t— _know_ , anymore, if she’s still okay with him or not. Logically she should be okay with him. Would be a pretty rubbish goddess to kick you out onto your arse and into the meaningless cold, for shit that was out of your control, and he knows for a fact that she’s fairly lenient.

But there’s blood on his hands that he doesn’t remember spilling, and he knows for a fact the Empire wouldn’t give half a shit if someone was really innocent. A good chunk of the poor suckers in the same boat as him had been heretics, sentenced to death for the simple crime of worshipping anyone besides the Empire’s approved gods, given a fate worse than death because the Empire decided it couldn’t waste a talent that they happened to have. And that's not even going into the people they were sent after, or the collateral damage that they caused in the process.

He tugs his coat closer around himself. Then he pulls his notebook out of his coat, and an idea flashes in his mind’s eye. Jester uses her journal to talk to her god, right? He could ask her about whatever she does while she’s doing that, if she does anything.

Yeah. Yeah, that's not a bad plan. He just needs to put together some sort of letter to the Moonweaver about the whole mess. Everything else will fall as it may, and he will deal with it as best as he can and move on.

Gods, does he want to move on.

“Hey, Molly?” Fjord asks, shaking Molly out of his thoughts. He finishes off his drumstick, tosses it over his shoulder, and turns to see Fjord holding up a sizable paper bag, with a shockingly pink purse in the other. The purse, Molly figures, might be big enough to hold an impressive amount of art supplies. “Here, catch.”

And he tosses the bag. Molly’s hand shoots upward, catching it almost effortlessly before it can sail over his head. He’s careful in opening it, and inside—

He smiles, looks up at Fjord. The smile disappears almost immediately when the geas kicks in just as he opens his mouth, but even that little hiccup can’t stop the wave of giddy happiness from crashing over him. There’s so much in this small paper bag, little charms and trinkets and pendants that caught his eye, and even some that didn’t. Those, he decides, are going to Nott and Jester.

“Thanks, fellas!” the vendor calls from behind them, as Molly and Fjord walk away from the stall. Molly turns on his heel to wave a final goodbye, then spins back around, taking out the crescent moon earring he’d seen before. He worries at his lower lip, then folds the opening of the bag down and slips it into his coat. Then he carefully sticks the earring through a mostly-open hole in his earlobe, hissing slightly at a brief flash of pain before it’s through.

He fastens it in place, then turns to look at Fjord. He tucks his hair back behind his ear to show the new earring off better, and tilts his head.

“Suits you,” says Fjord.

Molly preens, and tosses his head back with a bright laugh. He feels—better, surprisingly, lighter. A little more like himself than he did before. Like he’s clawing his way back up from the grave, one defiantly shiny bit of jewelry at a time.

They’re strolling down the street when Fjord says, “I know you don’t wanna talk about it, and you don’t need to answer this if you really don’t want to, but.” He runs a hand through his hair, and Molly idly notes that it’s longer now than it used to be, his undercut fuzzier now than it had been. Has Yasha been back long? She’d have fixed that if she had been. “Did you ever—hear anything about a Vandren, while you were in Astrid’s employ? Or a Sabien?”

Molly frowns, casting his memory back. He shivers as fragments of memory resurface, pulls his coat tighter around himself as if that could ward off the memory of blood on his hands, screams from the cells, the piercing white-hot lance of pain through his head when he’d opened his mouth to snarl out a curse at Astrid. Vandren, Sabien, Vandren, Sabien—

“Not a thing,” says Molly, finally, looking down and away. “Sorry. I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention.”

“No, it’s fine,” says Fjord, and his arm slings over Molly’s shoulders, tucks him in against his side. Molly’s not so prideful as to refuse this, so with only the briefest flinch and some adjustment to account for his horns, he presses in close to Fjord’s side. It’s—It’s been a while since he had this, since he had anyone touching him without intent to hurt him or wipe his memory or cast a spell to twist him even more. It feels nice, especially after sifting through his ruined memory for bits and pieces of information. “I just—I knew them, that’s all.”

Molly prods the side of Fjord’s stomach. Then he points to his temple. _How do you know them?_ he wants to ask.

“I got no idea what that means,” says Fjord. “What do you wanna say?”

“Oh, thank you,” says Molly, with a gusty sigh. “You told me about Vandren, but never this Sabien. How did you know him? And why ask me about both of them?”

“I used to sail with both of them,” says Fjord. “And—well, I told you about the ship I was on exploding, right?”

“It was after you shoved a stone inside your chest,” says Molly, dry as a desert. Fjord ducks his head, rubs his hand over the back of his neck like he’s embarrassed over the fact that Molly’s seen him essentially eat a magic rock. “Yes, I remember.”

“Sabien was the reason why it exploded,” says Fjord, and he tells him the rest of it—racing after Sabien, seeing him plant the package, racing out after him before everything went to hell. And he’s not done, there’s more: about this leviathan called Uk’otoa he’s apparently bonded to, a pirate named Avantika, the things he’d found out about Vandren from her just before she was killed.

Molly’s missed out on a lot, it seems. He’d known that before now, but this throws it into relief. His friends had moved on while he was gone, and he won’t and can’t begrudge them that, but while they’ve moved on it feels like he’s been standing still, shackled to the ground and trying to run after them, chase them down. Gods, now Fjord’s got the name of the thing that Molly had almost, _almost_ remembered so long ago, and _Uk’otoa_ rattles around in his skull like a pebble in his shoe. He should know that. Right? At least he should have some idea.

But he doesn’t. And he can’t express his frustration over that, so instead he just leans against Fjord and lets him talk and talk. Distantly, he thinks he ought to buy Beau a drink. Two drinks. _Five_ drinks. She grew up while he was away.

They all did.

Where does Molly fit now?

“—you okay there, Molls?”

Molly blinks. They’ve made it past two blocks by now, he realizes, while Fjord’s been talking and Molly’s been letting his words wash over him. “I’m all right,” he says, and it doesn’t quite sound like a lie. At least he hopes it doesn’t. At least he hopes it’s not obvious, this chasm that he sometimes feels is between him and the rest of the Nein now. It’s ridiculous to feel like this, like he can’t quite catch up, especially when everyone else is trying their best to pull him back into the fold. “What was that, about Dashilla and her hungry eye? I didn’t catch it.”

“We fought a ghost and nearly killed her, that’s what happened,” says Fjord. “Well. Again, anyway. Not much to tell after that, although we did meet somebody a little bit after…”

Molly glances away, then squints. Off in the distance, he can see someone ringing a bell on top of a stool, shouting at the top of their lungs. Unfortunately, this person’s lungs can’t be that large, because Molly can barely hear their voice over the raucous shouts of all the other vendors. They are, however, wearing puffy velvet sleeves, puffy pantaloons, even a puffy little hat sitting atop their head. He grabs Fjord by the arm and drags him towards the—the halfling, apparently.

As soon as he comes closer, he has to stifle a laugh. The halfling is standing atop a table with a crystal ball in the very center, a deck of tarot cards stacked off to the side of it with a space that’s been cleared for readings.

“You could just do your own readings,” says Fjord, and Molly arcs an eyebrow at him and stares. “Oh. Right. The thing.”

“Do your what now,” says the halfling, their features somewhat androgynous now that Molly’s looking closer. Their eyes are lined with kohl, their dark, springy curls tied back, and even standing on the table they still have to go on the very tips of their toes to meet his and Fjord’s eyes. “You do your own readings?”

Molly nods, and takes out his own tarot cards as a demonstration. He cuts and shuffles them with the practiced ease of a performer, before he slips them back into his coat and spins the chair around. He sits down with his arms resting on the back rest and smiles invitingly at the halfling.

“Oh, okay, that’s—great, that you still want to hear my reading,” says the halfling. Gods. Clearly they’re new at this if they’re fumbling their way through. “It’s really great! I’m really happy. Oh, wow, okay, um—welcome, Mister...uh, Miss?”

Molly snorts, and shrugs.

“You don’t talk very much, do you,” says the halfling, deflating slightly. “Oh, boy.”

“Yeah, no, he doesn’t,” says Fjord. “His name’s Molly, mine’s Fjord, and he doesn’t mind it either way.”

Molly points at Fjord and nods. Then he points at the halfling, and tilts his head to the side, poking his lower lip out curiously.

“Miss Molly, then, welcome!” says the halfling, recovering after a moment. They throw their shoulders back and grin wide, and gods, if only Molly could talk. He’s got his notebook and a pencil, but those aren’t the same. “Welcome to Miss Fortune’s Fortuneteller’s Stand! I’m workshopping the title right now. I’m _Mx._ Fortunato, I couldn’t pass up the pun, and I will lead you on a wondrous journey through your past, present, and future.”

Molly holds a finger up, to keep them quiet as he tugs his notebook out of his coat, and scribbles something in the now slightly-battered volume. _Me and ford,_ he writes. _Seperatly he also has som things to work thru._

“I will lead you both on a wondrous journey through your past, present and future,” Fortunato corrects. They take an exaggerated bow, and then scramble off the table and onto a chair. Gods, they’re so painfully new at this it’s almost adorable. Molly plants his elbows solidly on Fortunato’s table, propping his chin up on the heel of his palm. “Just pick a vehicle!”

Well, they’re enthusiastic, he’ll give them points for that. He points to the cards, and Fortunato cuts and shuffles with great aplomb. They’ve practiced, he can tell, the cards fly from one hand to the other with ease. They could stick a little more flair into their patter and their shuffling, but they’re new, Molly won’t begrudge them their slip-ups.

The cards fan out onto the table, all neat and tidy. “I’m going to do a three-card spread,” says Fortunato. “One for your past, one for your present, one for your future. I’ll do the same for your friend here,” and they nod to Fjord. “You get that, right?”

Molly raises an eyebrow, because—well, he’s mute, he’s not deaf. He nods.

Fortunato winces a little at the eyebrow raise, but they move on admirably, their left hand sweeping over the cards. They stop, backtrack, and slip a card out.

A half-elf with a sword looks away from the edge of the card, as if trying to catch sight of something in the distance. Page of Swords, Molly quickly realizes, and he lets a smile creep onto his face as Fortunato starts to talk.

“You’re a curious one, aren’t you,” they say, “you chase down new things with the energy of youth. You feel like you can do almost anything, like you’re invincible, like nothing can touch you so long as you just keep moving—and you’re always moving.”

Molly smiles, sadly, and looks down at his hands. Too late, he realizes: shit, he’s given himself away. He’s got to work on his tells now, all that time spent in the shadows and the dungeons undid what he’d managed to successfully make stick. Sure enough, when he looks up, Fortunato’s flipped another card over, and he winces at the sight of a tiefling woman bound in chains and blindfolded, surrounded by eight swords, standing in a puddle.

“Or you were, anyway,” says Fortunato, frowning. “You’re trapped, stuck. You think you’ve got no way out of whatever mess you’ve found yourself in, and that’s sending you into a spiral that makes it worse and worse. You have to get out of that spiral—stop wallowing in your thoughts and trust your gut. You have everything you need to get out of that mess, even if you don’t see it yet, you just need to see things from a brand new light.”

That’s nice of them. Molly keeps his tail still, his body language neutral, but chews on his lower lip. He’ll let them have that for free.

Fortunato’s hand stops, briefly, over a card. They frown down at it, for heartbeats longer than when they were simply pretending to be tugged to a card, then their hand drifts away and pulls another card. A naked gnome on a purely white pony charges forth on the card, underneath a rising, shining sun, carrying a banner streaming behind him.

“Trust me,” they say, somewhat hurriedly, “you will find success. You will find a way out, and things will get so, so much better than they were. There will be challenges in your path, trials that will test you to your core, but you will make it out of them! Everything will work out in your favor, eventually.”

Molly wishes he could believe them, because they sound like they’re trying to convince themself of what they’re saying.

“And that,” they start to say, “will be—”

Molly prods Fjord with his elbow, and mimes dropping coins into a purse.

“All right, all right, I got it,” says Fjord, pulling out a solid gold coin. Molly slants a glance back towards Fortunato, whose eyes have grown wide at the sight of it, then sticks up three fingers. “What—that’s a _lot_ , Molls.”

 _They deserv it,_ Molly writes. He turns to Fortunato, and writes, _Keep the chanj,_ grinning when he hears them gasp.

Fjord sighs, and drops three gold onto the table in front of a gawking Fortunato. Molly stands, and all but drags Fjord into the seat that he’s just freshly vacated himself.

“...so it’s covering you and your friend?” Fortunato weakly asks, still staring at the three gold. Molly nods enthusiastically, trying to shove down the anxiety bubbling up in the back of his throat, tasting like bile and blood.

“I think I’ll just have the ball instead,” says Fjord, and Molly steps away from him and Fortunato to collect his thoughts. He keeps them in his peripheral vision as he walks closer to the cart just a few stalls down selling what looks like cottony clouds of pink and blue swirled around sticks. Jester would like those, he’s sure. It’s a shame she didn’t come along on this trip, she’d have loved Fortunato.

Six coppers later, he’s tearing into a cloud of pink in his hand. It’s sugary as hell, Jester would absolutely adore these.

It could be worse, honestly. Fortunato’s got the makings of a good bullshitter in them, really, it’s just that they need to be a little more confident in themself. They’re not half-bad at cold-reading people, they pinned down Molly just fine. Too well, in fact, but that’s on him, he gave himself away too easy.

Eight of swords.

Least it’s not fucking _Death_ , he supposes, but it’s—uncomfortable, to say the least, knowing that he’s the one trapped and bound and _stuck_ , more literally than Fortunato perhaps figured he had been. His free hand drifts up to his neck, where the collar had bit in and chafed his skin raw, and he swallows the bile that rises in his throat.

He runs his hand through his hair, pulls it over his shoulder. It doesn’t do much to cover up the mess that’s been made of his tattoos, but it covers up that scar from the collar.

He’s halfway through the now significantly-diminished cloud of pink sugary bliss when Fjord walks up to him and says, “Y’know, I think that Fortunato fella might be on to something. What do you think?”

“I think they’re damn good at cold-reading and you’re the perfect sucker,” says Molly. “You’re very good at lying when you’re trying to, but I’m going to take a wild guess and say you weren’t really trying to lie all that much.”

Fjord, to his credit, scratches the back of his head and sighs. “You got a point there,” he says. “Oh, by the way—they actually wanted to talk to you. Said they wanted to come clean with you over something.”

Right. Molly presses the cloud of sugary cottony bliss into Fjord’s hand and points at the stand behind him, and the bored-looking human buffing his nails. He makes a big circle in the air, then a handle, then mimes taking the handle and swinging.

“Yeah, I know, Jester would love this,” says Fjord, dryly. “I knew from the second I saw it.”

Molly pats his shoulder, and drops a few coppers into his hand before he flounces off, back to Fortunato’s stand. The halfling’s standing on their chair now, and gives Molly a small smile as he comes up to their table.

“I—owe you an apology,” they say, at last, a hand resting on their tarot deck. “That last card? I had a feeling, and I ignored it. And that’s—that was pretty shitty of me, because what if that card could help you?” They fan the deck out again, and say, “Can you let me just—”

Molly holds his hand up, to stop them from going forward, and taps his chest. They place their hands on either side of the fanned-out deck, eyes narrowed in confusion. He pulls a card out from their deck, at random, heart clawing at his ribcage. He puts it down, face-up.

Death.

Fuck.

“How did you know?” Fortunato asks, and Molly rakes a hand through his hair, staring down at the Raven Queen’s porcelain mask, the pale horse, the scythe in her hand. Death in the future, huh? Fuck. _Fuck_. “Miss Molly? Are you okay? You’re—You’re shaking. Oh, god, someone help, somebody _help_ —”

Of fucking course he’s shaking. He staggers back, the fear rising in his chest and his hand going up to his horn and his hair, and bumps against something solid. For a moment he freezes, because oh god, what if it’s _her_ or Eodwulf or, Moonweaver help him, one of those other poor bastards, what if they’ve come to drag him back, he can’t go back he doesn’t want to but they’ll make him and he doesn’t even know if he’ll survive, what’s going to be left of him if they drag him back oh god please no _please no_ —

“Molly? _Molly_ , hey, no, come on, calm down, it’s just me—let go, come on, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

It isn’t okay, it’s not _fucking_ okay, someone’s caught his wrist and he can’t even speak, can’t even scream for help or beg for mercy, please don’t hurt him please leave him alone please don’t let him be alone in that cold and lonely cell again _please_ —

“ _Molls_ , hey, hey.”

Someone tugs him away, pulls him towards somewhere dark, and he can’t even put up a fight, every part of him has frozen over and oh god no no no _please_ —

“Molly? Molly, it’s just me. It’s Fjord.”

Hands on his shoulders. Something solid but sun-warmed at his back. Green skin, yellow eyes.

“Can you hear me, Molls?” says Fjord. “Okay, if you can hear me, just breathe, yeah? Hold, one two three, then let go. One two three, let go. Okay. Keep going, just keep breathing, I ain’t gonna leave you, not again. I promise you I won’t.”

One, two, three, breathe.

Molly’s heart stops hammering quite so hard against his chest. This is Fjord. Fjord’s not going to hurt him or toss him into a small stone cell, he’s safe, he’s okay. Nothing all that bad will happen to him because of _Fjord_ , who’s rubbing his hands over Molly’s shoulders comfortingly, and so Molly lets himself fall forward onto Fjord’s chest.

Fjord catches him, rubs a hand over his back. “I can go back to apologize to Mx. Fortunato, if you want me to,” he says, after a while, and, right. That had happened, hadn’t it. He should let Fjord go talk to the nice young halfling fortuneteller and apologize, because Molly having a breakdown in front of them probably hadn’t been very pretty.

The problem here, though, is that at the moment, the idea of being alone scares the ever-loving shit out of him, so he clings tighter to Fjord in answer. “You want me to stay?” Fjord asks, quietly, hand resting on his back, between his shoulder blades.

Molly nods, not quite trusting himself to speak just yet. He’ll apologize to Fortunato later, himself, but for now he needs this. For now he needs someone to hold him close, like he’s a person and not a weapon, not a thing. Like he’s worth all the effort they’re going to, just to save him.

Like Death might not be nipping at his heels.

Fjord sighs, his breath tickling over Molly’s hair, and holds on to him tight.

\--

The first thing that Nott’s eyes snag on, when they finally get to the Shield’s Grace after a few shortcuts and detours, is the shiny, shiny shield hanging as a sign in front of it.

And it is _very_ shiny, and nicely circular too. An ivory-white star is engraved in the center of it, surrounded by three bands of red, white and blue. Painted in cursive white letters on the outermost band, the red one, are the words _Shield’s Grace_. The sign itself is attached to a sturdy, rustic-looking two-story inn of brown stone and wood, with puffs of smoke billowing from the chimney in fits. In front of the inn is a path lined with rosebushes in bloom, and it’s currently flooded with people going in and out, laughing and joking and walking, or in some cases drunkenly swaying, together.

“Well, here we fucking are, the Shield’s fucking Grace,” says Verrin, before she pulls out a bottle from her coat, unscrews the cap, and starts to chug.

“For all the talk about it, I thought it would be as big as the Pillow Trove or something,” says Jester, distinctly disappointed. She crosses her arms. “This is just like any other inn we’ve been to on the road.”

“It’s _shiny_ ,” whispers Nott, staring at the shield. She shakes her head, because—not _now_ , dammit. Later, she’ll satisfy her Itch later, there’s probably no shortage of grumpy people here who could do without a few of their smaller, shinier trinkets. “So I guess this is where we part for the day, right?” she asks Verrin.

Verrin chews on her bottom lip, mulling something over. “No,” she says. “You know what the Shield’s Grace got that my usual places don’t?”

“But your usual places have _cheap booze_ ,” says Nott.

“But it has _better booze_ ,” Verrin says. “Booze from fucking— _Tal’Dorei_ , fuck, do you know how hard that is to get?” She narrows her eyes up at the inn’s sign. “And my usual guy’s a fucking hard-ass about imported booze. Sometimes you just want some damn sandkeg, that’s all.”

“Oh, no,” says Jester, “actually—we know a place that has sandkeg!” She spins around, and Nott grips on to her horns for dear life. She loves Jester very much, but _hoo boy_ , that sudden spin’s not doing wonders for her constitution. A lot of things don’t do wonders for her constitution if she’s being completely honest with herself. “Right, Beau?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” says Beau, lifting her chin and giving her best cocky smirk. Nott narrows her eyes at her, because it absolutely looks like she’s trying to be impressive. Then again, the more impressive Beau is, the likelier it is that Verrin will, if not believe her, then at the very least come with her. “Saw a nice little stall selling really good imported beer from Tal’Dorei, yesterday. Might be fun to go try it out, yeah?”

Verrin bites her lip, eyes darting away from Beau towards the inn. Then she sighs, and says, “Fine. Let’s go see where this stall is, then.” There’s a note of skepticism in her voice, like she really doesn’t think Beau will remember where it is, but she doesn’t break away when Beau links elbows with her.

“See you guys later!” Beau calls, leading Verrin away. The crowds swallow them up in moments, and Nott climbs down off Jester when they disappear.

“So, okay, we go in and we grab this Janille,” she says, “and we threaten her into talking! Just point a crossbow at her and tell her that we know enough about the Academy, but we want to know the dirtier bits!”

“...I don’t think she’ll be really talkative if we do that,” says Jester, after a moment spent in deep thought. “And what if she tells somebody? What if word gets back to the Academy and they put two and two together?” She rocks back and forth on her heels. “Molly wasn’t really trying to hide when he was with us. He fought in the Victory Pit, someone’s going to realize we’re connected to him.”

“That Yonnah fellow didn’t,” Nott says.

“He was really stupid, he doesn’t count,” says Jester, and honestly, that’s not false. What little Nott’s seen of the late Yonnah Intyre is not very impressive, considering that his entire plan was just to have Molly take out Caleb and Jester, and then wipe up the rest. Like _that_ would work. “Anyway, if we tell her we know what the Soltryce Academy is up to, she’d freak out on us and either call the Crownsguard or just kill us in an alleyway. And we don’t have everyone else with us.”

“Okay, so we’ll need to be a little more subtle,” says Nott. “Just— _insinuate_ a few things. Just _imply_ that we’ve got an idea what her school is up to, and maybe, just maybe, we want in.”

“I was sort of thinking,” says Jester, “that I’d talk to her. She knows me already, but she doesn’t know you. I could talk to her, and you could pick her pocket, take her keys, and start looking in her room for anything we could bring back to our inn.” She pauses, then adds, “But I _like_ that idea. I can go up to her and be all, _heyyyy, Janille, I hear lots and lots of things about the Soltryce Academy, and I’m super into the bits about possibly making people do what I want them to do_.”

“Like that!” says Nott, triumphantly, pointing at her. They’re making plans, brilliant plans, _foolproof_ plans, Nott knows this deep in her bones. “And then while you distract her, I go find her room and rifle through her stuff! Once I find what we need, I can message you and we can get the hell out of the inn!”

“I can cast Thaumaturgy and make it sound like there was an explosion in the kitchen!” says Jester, practically bouncing on her heels. “And then while people are freaking out and investigating we can get away clean!”

“Yeah!” Nott shouts, pumping her fist into the air. “ _Fuck yeah!_ We’re the best detective agency on this continent!”

“We’re the best detective agency in the world!” Jester proclaims, sticking her hand out in the air. Nott jumps, slapping her hand against Jester’s, and they both let out the most badass, triumphant, _victorious_ whoops. “Now come on, partner!”

“Lead the way, partner!” Nott says, following in after Jester with a pep in her step. Granted, the pep doesn’t last long with the amount of people she ends up having to push through, but _eventually_ she and Jester make it through the entrance.

The entrance to the inn is _cozy_ , rustic and homely. There are logs burning steadily in the hearth, families with small children at tables full of food, portraits and beautifully-rendered mountain landscapes hanging on the wood-covered walls. The lamps set into little alcoves in the walls give off a faint, yellowish glow, further giving the place a vibe of— _coziness_ , almost. Like it’s trying desperately to make itself feel like home to whoever stops by.

No one really lives in a home like this. Not in a town like this, or in a town like Felderwin, or—anywhere Nott can think of, honestly. It’s all fake, all a pretense for money, but Nott can see the appeal for so many people. Especially people with families in tow, and she fixes her mask a little so it settles on her face more comfortably. She tugs her hood up, looking around.

“Wow, that’s a lot of people,” Jester murmurs, scanning the room as well. “Way more than our inn. Ooh, and lots more kids too. Verrin really wanted to buy booze from here?”

“I don’t think she was really looking to buy booze,” says Nott, her intestines tying into ugly little knots. Had they not managed to keep their conversation down after all? She scans the room for a head of blonde hair and pointed ears, like Jester’s said to look out for.

She sees blonde hair and pointed ears, all right, belonging to someone sitting on a barstool. But the hair has twigs in it, and the pointed ears are at a _much_ shorter height than this Janie’s should be, with the legs attached to this person being very far up off the ground.

It couldn’t be. It _couldn’t_ be.

Nott tugs on Jester’s arm, and asks shrilly, “Who do you think that is?”

“Hm?” Jester turns, and her eyes go wide. “Oh my gosh. Oh my _gosh_!”

The gnome whips around. Large green eyes, twigs in her rat’s nest hair, mouth fallen open and then turning up and up in a wide grin—oh, yes. Oh, _yes_.

“Nott! Jester!” yells Twiggy, practically launching herself at them. In seconds, Nott almost gets knocked over by a giddy gnome, her arms wrapping around Nott’s scrawny goblin form. “You guys! I didn’t know you were _here_! Oh my _gosh_ this is the best day ever!”

“Hi, Twiggy,” says Nott, weakly, all the wind having been expelled from her lungs with the force of Twiggy’s hug. “Didn’t think we’d see you either, honestly.”

“Twiggy!” Jester squeals, and her arms wrap around the both of them and lift with very little effort. “ _Ahhh_ you guys are the _cutest!_ ” Then she gently puts them both down again, shepherding them away from the door and toward the counter, and says, “Wait, what are you doing here?”

“Oh, I heard there was a festival and I hitched a ride here,” says Twiggy. “And also I kind of sort of maybe. Took something off somebody again. But they were being pretty mean!”

“Those are the only people you should steal from,” says Nott, sagely. At least she’s pretty sure. Molly had been, and Molly’s one of the best people she knows, even with the part where he sometimes flips out and stabs people he shouldn’t now. Sometimes that happens to the best of people. Then she pauses and narrows her eyes. “It’s not another happy fun ball, is it?”

She feels Jester tense, beside her. She reaches up a hand and squeezes Jester’s hand, once, twice.

“Oh, no!” says Twiggy, shaking her head to emphasize her point. Leaves fall gently out of her hair. “No, it’s not a ball. It’s more like a—a necklace, actually. It was very shiny, and it could do this thing where if you thought really really hard, a shield would come out!” She pulls her pouch back around and says, “Let me just—”

“Oh, no, no, not here,” Nott says, grabbing her wrist and pulling it away from her pouch ( _hey!_ ). “Twiggy, there are some very bad people hereabouts. Don’t show us the necklace where they could see it too.”

“You can show us later,” says Jester, leaning in closer. “But in _secret_ , okay? We need to be very, very careful, because we’re going to be meeting someone who could either be very bad or only a little bit bad.”

“Or brainwashed,” says Nott.

Twiggy, eyes wide, nods urgently. She shuts her pouch once more. “What are you guys doing here?” she asks, her voice a low whisper.

“We’re trying to help a friend,” says Jester. “Some very bad people had him, and they fucked with his head. We’re trying to unfuck it.”

“Do you have diamond dust?” Nott asks, inspiration striking her. Maybe, just maybe—

Twiggy shakes her head. “No, sorry,” she says. “What would I do with diamond anything, anyway? I already have this.” She tugs something out from under her shirt, a dragon’s tooth strung on a leather cord. “It’s pretty cool!” she whispers, excitedly.

Nott smiles, tiredly. “Yeah, really cool,” she says.

“You’re a _dragonslayer_ and we’re so proud,” says Jester, managing to summon up a smile from somewhere. Nott looks up, then squeezes her hand again, once, twice, three times. Jester shuts her eyes, then seems to rally herself, and says, “We need diamond dust because we’re trying to cast a restoration spell on our friend. So he can be okay again.”

“Oh,” says Twiggy, visibly drooping a little. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help.”

“Actually,” says Nott, an idea popping into her brain, “I think I know a way you could.”


	33. you've woken up my heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from James Bay’s “Need the Sun to Break”.
> 
> I’m aiming to post the next chapter next week and am already working on building it up, but there’s a 50% possibility I won’t be able to bc of things I don’t really want to get into at the moment filling up my time.
> 
> also none of you know how much it pains me to have to add another chapter when I’m at 1 _69_ k. Appreciate My Sacrifice.

“Yeah?” says the thug, as Caleb and Yasha walk up to him. They must make for a strange sight, Caleb reflects: a large, pale woman with a cat on her shoulders, and a shabby hobo trailing behind her. Certainly they’re drawing some attention their way, but most of it is curious glances that break away for more interesting objects as soon as they’ve passed on by. “What do you—oh. Oh. _You._ ”

“Me,” Yasha agrees.

“What do you,” says the thug, eyes darting to Caleb, “and your buddy here want this time?”

“We accept,” says Yasha, bluntly. “We talked. We decided. We’re taking the job.”

“That was quick,” says the thug, his bushy eyebrows drawing together. “Where’s your other friends? Lil’ blue tiefling, pretty green half-orc? Seems like you just brought a guy here to talk with us.”

“Oh, _ja_ , I am here to talk with you,” says Caleb, agreeably, stepping forward now to take over the interaction. Yasha steps back as he does, and he hears her grateful, relieved sigh when she brushes against him. “Our friends are busy with other things, so you get to talk to me.”

The man seems to relax, clearly judging Caleb not to be much of a threat. To be fair, it’s not as if Caleb goes out of his way to look as if he’s a threat to anyone. Still, for a man who’s running in a gang for a long time, he should know better than to simply judge someone by their cover. “All well and fine,” he says, raking his eyes over Caleb. “Ronwell’s a bit busy to talk to anyone at the moment—”

“Is this not news that he would like to hear?” Caleb asks, letting a note of authority creep into his tone. He sees the thug straighten up, almost unconsciously. Good. He’s got him hooked. “Tell him—hm. Tell him that the Mighty Nein have accepted his job.”

“The Mighty— _what_ did you say?” says the thug, alarm flashing across his face. That is less of a surprise than it would’ve been months ago, they’ve been building a name for themselves and out in the shadier parts of the continent. “The ones that killed the _Shepherds_?”

Caleb nods. Once upon a time he would’ve smiled, too, dark and cold and twisted. But it has been a long time since those days, and so instead Caleb lifts his head up and stares the goliath dead in the eye. “Yes,” he says. “He spoke to some of us yesterday.”

“Yeah, but your buddies didn’t say they were part of the Mighty _fucking_ Nein!” says the thug. His eyes scan Caleb over again, this time with a new understanding behind them. “ _Shite_ , we were just told they knew Ghavnos!”

“He’s very well-connected,” Yasha says. “Can you take us to Ronwell now?”

“Like I said, he’s got other stuff!” says the thug, throwing his hands up. “I promise, I’m not fucking with you—he’s the boss, there’s tons of other stuff he’s gotta do. And we’re gearing up for a fight, so there’s even _more_.”

“ _Ja,_ we can guess what sort of fight you’re gearing up for,” says Caleb. “In light of that, I suppose we can both wait, right, Yasha?”

Yasha seems to hesitate for a moment, her eyes flicking up and down Caleb’s body as if looking for a signal. He gives a slight nod, and she very casually reaches up her hand and lays it on the hilt of her sword. A mental whisper to Frumpkin along his bond, and the cat hisses slightly at the thug.

A giant woman with a cat, it turns out, can scare the shit out of a hardened criminal easily enough, even a goliath. The man _whimpers_ slightly, under Yasha’s steely glare. She may be bad at lying, but Caleb no longer doubts her effectiveness at getting her way without speaking a word.

“How ‘bout this?” says the thug, lowering his hands. Caleb keeps track of them, noting that they’ve drifted down to his sides where he and Yasha can see them. “I can take you to see him, but you’re gonna have to wait out his meeting. That’s the best I can do for you folks.”

“We can live with that,” says Caleb, nodding to Yasha. Slowly, deliberately, she takes her hand off the hilt of her sword. With a mental whisper, Frumpkin desists as well, but his eyes are fixed on the goliath thug. “Take us there, then.”

“I will, I will, just let me finish something first,” says the thug, grabbing a glass orb with a miniature version of the Lawmaster’s tower inside. “I promised my kid I’d bring her a couple things from the festival.”

“Far be it from us to stop you, then,” says Caleb.

“That reminds me, I have someone who might like one of these,” says Yasha, picking up a particularly colorful souvenir: a pinwheel, each curl painted and decorated in bright colors and glitter. “Caleb? I think he might like this, coming from you.”

“ _Was_ —” Caleb starts, just as Yasha thrusts the pinwheel towards him. It does look like something Molly would like: a flashy riot of colors, defiant in its joy. He brings it up close to his mouth and blows, watching the painted colors blur into a small hurricane of purple and blue and red and white, almost alive in his fingers. In his mind’s eye, Molly spins on his heel, grinning brightly, resplendent in a red dress. “ _Ja_ ,” he says, almost before his mind and good sense can catch up with his heart and mouth. “He would love this.”

“You guys, um, have someone?” says the goliath, leaning over and passing over a stuffed bear.

“If we do, that is none of your business,” says Caleb, coolly, tugging out his coinpurse. One, two, three, four, five coppers, all laid out in a neat line on the counter for the vendor to take. “If we’re done here?”

“Okay, okay,” says the thug. “Just gimme a couple minutes to stuff my shit in and _then_ we can go.”

\--

When Janille comes down from the stairs, Nott and Twiggy have vanished out of sight. Well, mostly out of sight, Jester can see a dirty blonde head poking up near a nearby dragonborn stirring a cup of melting ice, but Janille’s presence pulls her attention away. It’s easy enough to mark her out in this room, because her robes are way, way whiter and cleaner than anyone else in this room. Even the richest person here doesn’t have robes that clean.

Something cold and heavy drops into her stomach. Were those the robes that Caleb wore when he—when he broke?

She takes a sip of her milk. No, no thinking about Caleb or Molly or any horrible terrible thing that the people that Janille’s with did to them. No thinking about Fjord, either, and what horrible things the Academy might do to _him_. She won’t let the Soltryce Academy or the Cerberus Assembly or anyone like them or the Shepherds lay a finger on her friends ever again. _Ever._

“Oh, hello!” Janille’s chirpy voice cuts into Jester’s thoughts, and she slides into the seat beside her. She’d be bright-eyed, if the dark bags under her eyes weren’t obvious, and Jester sits up when she sees them. “Sorry, I had a pretty late night. You’re—from the bakery, right?”

“Oh, yep,” says Jester, pasting on a smile. In the back of her mind, Molly looks up at her, bound in awful red strings and bleeding, and says, _Jester?_ “I’m Jester! We didn’t really get off to a good start, but I thought about what you said. I _guess_ I’m a little bit interested to hear about the Academy from someone who goes there.”

“Your friend won’t regret it, I promise,” says Janille.

“It’s not for him,” says Jester, because the Academy _cannot_ have Fjord. Every cell in her body recoils at the very thought of it, of those stupid brainwashy fucks taking Fjord and breaking him the same way they broke Caleb and Molly. She can’t, she _won’t_ let that happen, not on her watch. Fjord is the first friend she’s ever had besides the Traveler. She’s going to keep an eye out for him come hell or high water. “It’s for me. I’m kind of thinking about it.”

“Oh,” says Janille, surprised. For a minute Jester sees doubt flash across her face, but it’s wiped away by the same cheery demeanor Janille had used with Fjord, in the bakery. “Oh! What changed your mind?”

“I got to thinking about what you said, that’s all,” says Jester, demurely. “I want you to tell me _everything_ about Rexxentrum and the Academy.”

“Okay!” says Janille. “Let me just go get something from upstairs, it’s a brochure—”

“Oh, no, no,” says Jester, quickly, grabbing hold of Janille and yanking her back onto her chair, “it’s okay! Just tell me what it’s like, I don’t need a brochure or a letter or anything. I want to know the things _you_ like about it.” In the very edge of Jester’s vision, two small, hooded figures dart quickly up the stairs.

“It’s a lot, though,” says Janille, fretfully, “and I can’t really—there’s not a lot of things—I’m very forgetful, ma’am, can you forgive me for jumping from one thing to another if I remember them?”

The longer Janille stays down here, the longer Nott and Twiggy have to search through her room. And it’s not so big a sacrifice to make, after all. It’s not like Jester’s sacrificing her sanity or her life, not like she’s staring down a blue dragon. This is just a girl. Easy-peasy, in comparison. “I could!” Jester says, cheerily. “I know someone who’s _preeeetty_ forgetful too, I’m used to this.”

“Oh, good,” says Janille, relaxing. “Mister Bartender, can you get me a round please?”


	34. reaching for a piece of you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Oh The Larceny’s “The Original”.

“The piragua guy says she’s rooming in the third room on the right, with a little lion on the doorknob,” says Twiggy, her voice a low whisper as she comes up to Nott. “He also says she’s a little—not all there? Sometimes she forgets things that just happened, he said.”

 _I don’t remember it so well,_ Caleb had said, looking down at his hands. Sure, it could just be trauma, but Nott’s not so sure about that. “Maybe she’ll conveniently forget things went missing,” she says. Her eyes slide towards Janille and Jester, already chatting away to each other. From this distance, if she didn’t know any better, she’d say they’re old friends catching each other up. From this distance, if she didn’t know to look for it, she wouldn’t notice Jester’s grip tightening around her glass of milk, the way her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

But she does know, and she does see, and she has some idea why. She pulls her hood up and says, “Come on, we can’t waste time lolly-gagging around.” That’s what it means, right? Fjord doesn’t always deign to explain some of the weirder words he uses. She ought to sit him down one of these days for a talk about that.

“What are we looking for?” Twiggy asks, trailing behind her, her own hood pulled up. Trixie the squirrel pokes his head out from the cloak and chitters, and Twiggy shushes him. “I know! But Nott’s friend needs our help.”

“Documents,” says Nott. “The lady who just came downstairs, she’s involved with some very, very bad people.” She hesitates, then says, “The same people who fucked with my friend. We’re building a _case_ against those people, but we need evidence first.”

Twiggy’s eyes go wide. “A case,” she breathes. “Okay!”

“But we need to check for traps and leave as little trace behind as possible,” says Nott, stopping in front of the door with a lion’s head doorknob. It looks very aggressive, she’ll give it that, but she’s picked nastier locks than this. “I’ll check for traps, you pick the lock?”

“Got it,” says Twiggy, slipping a shiny new lockpick out of her hands. Damn it, and here Nott hasn’t gotten a new one in _months_. She keeps meaning to, but it’s just one thing after the other with the Mighty Nein, and it keeps slipping her mind.

She makes a mental note as she starts feeling around the doorframe, the doorknob, the door itself: _new lockpicks_. The Gentleman owes them a couple favors, doesn’t he?

And— _there_. A tripwire, so fine that no one would notice it at first glance. Nott signals for Twiggy to stand back, and bends down to inspect its path. Up, up, up the doorframe—there, a hole right around the area where someone’s groin would be, and where Nott’s head _is_. Smart. And there’s another one, too, aimed towards her ankle. Very smart.

Just not smart enough.

Nott puts her finger to her lips, and brings out a stale pastry. She ducks low, avoiding the hole that’s lined up with her head, and jams it right into the hole. Then she pushes another one into the next hole.

She draws her dagger, steps back. Then she deliberately cuts the wire.

Two arrows _thunk_ into the pastries. Nott retrieves the pastries, pulls the arrows out, then stuffs both pastries and arrows into her bag.

“That is _so cool_ ,” Twiggy whispers. Then she creeps up to the doorknob.

“And think of it this way,” Nott adds, stepping aside to let Twiggy at it, “free crossbow bolts!”

Twiggy doesn’t answer, sticking her tongue out of the side of her mouth as she concentrates. Nott glances from one end of the corridor to another, but nobody’s come out of their rooms or come upstairs just yet. They’re lucky so far. She leans casually against the wall, and tries to look as innocent as she can possibly be.

After what feels like an eternity, Nott hears the lock click. Twiggy pushes the door slowly open, as careful as only someone who’s had recent experience with unpleasant surprises behind doors can be. She creeps in after the little gnome, and shuts the door behind her, making sure that it doesn’t make a sound as it closes.

“Well, this is all really big,” says Twiggy, her nose scrunching up.

Nott can’t help but agree. “Big and weird,” she says, scanning the room. It’s not quite as big and luxurious as the rooms in the Pillow Trove, but it’s close, and it’s even got a nice little view of the alley beside the Shield’s Grace, the window leading out to a little metal balcony with a ladder that seems to let down. On one side is a large cabinet with a mirror set onto one of its doors, on the other a bedside drawer made of mahogany. “You take that side, I’ll take this one,” she adds, pointing to the left side of the room.

“Okay!” Twiggy says, and darts off to start searching through the bedside drawers.

Nott scurries over to the cabinet, feeling around for traps. Her fingers brush against a strange little mark on one of the cabinet’s lowest drawers, underneath its doors, and she bends down to squint at it, carved into the wood. Yeah, she knows that symbol—Caleb let her carefully, deliberately draw it in his spellbook once, as part of teaching her magic. This is necromantic magic, maybe something like Jester’s Inflict Wounds.

She backs up till she’s a safe distance away from the cabinet. Then she casts Mage Hand, and a disembodied green hand, glowing slightly, snaps into existence. With a push of her will, the hand drifts over to the drawer and very slowly pulls it open.

The spell explodes out of it with alarming force, but with no one to latch on to, it slams into the bed instead. Sickly green energy fades away from the coverlets, evaporating like a spring rain on cobblestones.

Twiggy pokes her head up. “What was that?” she asks.

“Inflict Wounds,” says Nott, and creeps closer now that the spell has gone off. With a murmur, she dismisses the Mage Hand, then peeks into the now-open drawer. “ _Oooh._ ”

“What is it, what is it?” says Twiggy, hopping onto the bed and trying to peer over into the drawer.

“It’s shiny stuff is what it is,” says Nott, pulling out a shiny silver pendant on a string. It looks almost like an axe, only with scales etched onto the flat of the blade—oh, it’s a holy symbol, with a crack running down the center of it. She fishes it out of the drawer and stares down at the papers stacked underneath it.

“Twiggy,” she whispers, “did you find anything on your side?”

“Eh, not really,” says Twiggy. “Some spell components and some papers, I took those.” She fishes the papers out from her bag and hands them off to Nott. “They’re all written weirdly, though.”

 _Written weirdly_ is an understatement. To Nott’s eyes, the papers Twiggy’s found are an incomprehensible jumble of letters and numbers, marked with a signature on the end: _A. Koenigsmann_ , the letters sharp and cramped close together, bound by a dignified-looking line that cuts across the middle. Others are marked with a more flowery if somewhat shaky _J. Leth_.

“Holy shit, they’re in _code_ ,” Nott says. “We need to get these to Caleb! He’s very good at cracking codes.” She spins around and yanks out the papers from her drawer. There’s a cipher in here somewhere, there has to be—

Her eyes catch on a letter, written in black ink, folded and unfolded so many times that it’s tearing along the creases. It’s not coded, the way the other letters were. _I wish I was there at Rexxentrum with you,_ Nott reads, and _Come back home soon, Janie, things are just not the same without you around_ and _I found something in the library that you might like, maybe there’s a copy there in Rexxentrum_. Scrawled on the bottom, at the very end, are the words, _Love, Verrin_.

“Oh,” says Nott, staring at the letter. It’s weird reading this, because Verrin doesn’t talk like this now, like she’s full of hope and dreaming of something better, like she believes in the Empire. Like the world hasn’t crashed down around her just yet. “There’s way less fucks than I thought there would be,” she says.

“Why would there be a lot of them?” says Twiggy.

“Because I know the person who wrote this letter,” says Nott. “And she’s a hard-drinking, hard-talking, hard- _everything_ kind of person, and this is not.” Verrin wears her pain on her sleeve, that’s clear, and now Nott thinks—there must’ve been a time when she didn’t _have_ that pain to wear. She folds the letter up with care, and places it back into the drawer. Then she reaches in again and pulls three small, stoppered vials out. One is the familiar glowing blue of a healing potion, but the other two are different. “You want one?” she says to Twiggy.

Twiggy chews on her lip for a moment, then ducks her head down into her shirt. “What do you think, Trixie?” she whispers. “Do you want one? Oh, one of them’s a healing potion. Another looks kind of like someone bottled up a stormcloud. Another’s sort of green one moment, then grey the next, then green again. Hm. Okay. Okay. Sure!” Then her head pops back up. “I’d like the one that’s green and grey.”

Nott tosses her the vial, then stows the other two into her pocket. The rest of the letters are encoded, in what seems like the same cipher as the ones Twiggy found. Caleb can solve them, she knows, he’s done it before. Besides, they have more time here than on Darktow.

_Nott, this is Jester, you need to get out of there right now—_

“We have to go!” says Nott, slamming the drawer shut again. “Quick, get the window open! I’ve got an idea!”

Twiggy rushes over to the window, just as Nott yanks the cabinet doors open. There’s got to be clothes that can fit someone big in here, and they can’t afford to be seen and recognized. Just in time, she remembers that if the lower drawers were trapped, the cabinet doors are probably trapped too. She hits the ground hard, as a dart just grazes her hair, cutting off a few strands before burying itself in the wall. Then she yanks a robe out of the closet and tosses it to Twiggy.

She’s not even all that jealous when Twiggy catches it without even looking. Nope. Definitely not. “What’s this for?” Twiggy asks. “It’s a little too big for me—”

“Just climb out the window!” Nott says. She can hear footfalls coming from down the hall, they can’t waste any more time here. She yanks the drawer door open again, and scoops up a pouch that she _hopes_ has exactly what they need to save Molly. “And hold on to that!”

Twiggy nods, then jumps out the window. Nott clambers onto the windowsill after her, then glances back into the room, eyes scanning the room for anything more that they could’ve missed. Then she hears the sound of someone grumbling about _too many keys, which one is it, ugh_ , and jumps off.

She tucks her knees in and rolls as she hits the ground, skidding to a stop and looking around. “Twiggy?” she whispers urgently.

“Right here!” comes Twiggy’s voice right next to her, and with a snap, the little forest gnome shimmers back into existence, covered in pink bubblegum. “Did you bring Disguise Self? I didn’t.”

“Uh, no,” says Nott, “but climb on top of me and put the robe on, I have a great idea.”

\--

A brief interlude, to illuminate our heroes’ escapades:

“Oh, _no_ ,” says Janille, staring at the—the _ruckus_ of her room, there’s no other word for this mess. She’s a forgetful sort, she knows this, Astrid keeps reprimanding her for always forgetting things, but she’s pretty sure she would remember if she left her room all in disarray like this. Someone must’ve broken in, then, but who would think to break in? Hasn’t anyone been around to see?

She looks around. No, no one’s seen, there’s no one walking up or down the corridor. Janille sighs, and steps inside, and notes that there are darts buried in the wall opposite from her cabinet.

Her _cabinet_. Shit, fuck, someone rifled through her cabinet drawers, and she hurries closer to see the debris of her things scattered across the lowest drawer.

Shit, someone’s stolen her letters and her potions, and more than that, someone _stole her holy symbol_. Someone who must still be here, if they left out the window in a hurry, likely because they heard her coming up. She grits her teeth and rushes up to the window, to find—

A person? Someone with blonde hair, certainly, staggering away from the alleyway while wearing _her robe_ , and Janille readies a Guiding Bolt as she squints at the—the creature? Person? They don’t seem to be very steady on their feet, they’re swaying as if they’re drunk. Or as if…

What sort of ears are those, she wonders, suddenly. What sort of person sways like that, even while drunk? No one. No _one_ , anyway, and Janille leaps out the window with nary a thought, drawing on as much divine magic as she can. She’s unfathomably lucky, she knows, the Lawbearer is still letting her draw on her divine power even though she’s angry at Janille for—for what, she doesn’t know. She can’t remember. Shouldn’t she know?

There are criminals on the loose, though, and at least two of them have stolen her robes, and Janille—

Janille does _not_ land as gracefully as she’d hoped. Instead she twists her ankle on the way down, and her spell dissipates in her hand from the pain that flashes briefly through her leg. She grits her teeth and stands. She is one of the Empire’s best, pain should not distract her from her tasks, Astrid had taught her that in the first days of her apprenticeship. She still bears the scars with pride. She should, anyway.

She tugs the collar of her shirt up, to hide the very tips of the white scars. Then she races off after the criminals, and they’re criminals _plural_ , she’s sure of this—

“Oh, Janille!” There’s the little blue tiefling again, seemingly popping out of nowhere. Likely she just blended into the crowds, really, and Janille curses herself for not thinking to look into the crowds. She must apply her training better, she can hear Astrid’s voice chastising her now, as if she’s a child. “We didn’t get to finish our talk!”

“Can we,” starts Janille, weaving her way past a gnome in purple serenading his wife, a fellow gnome with bright white hair, “can we save it, please, for a later time? I don’t—something just came up, but I’ve not forgotten about our talk, and I won’t, I promise you—”

“But we have to finish it now!” the tiefling whines as Janille tries to leave her behind in the crowd, her voice going higher in pitch. Janille winces, and spins around to meet her eyes, strangely human. Charms dangle from the curly horns jutting out of her hair, and for a moment Janille sees—someone else, red eyes, lavender skin, peacock feathers trailing up his neck, defiance in how he glares up at her, he’d worn charms too hadn’t he, _Janille, dear, show him the price of defiance_ —

She shakes her head. Who—Who was that? One of the corpse soldiers? But she’s never been a part of making one. She would remember. Right?

She shuts her eyes. God, no, not another headache. It pounds behind her eyelids, like a hammer cracking against the inside of her skull. Everything is too loud, too close, too _much_ —

“Ver,” she whispers, her sister’s name slipping out past her lips. Not her sister, just her mother’s ward. Her sister, who’d always been there. Not her sister because _she left_. “Ver, _Verrin_ —”

“Oh, shit,” says the little blue tiefling, red, no not red her eyes are almost human, her eyes are blue like her skin and wide and Janille—

Janille’s knees give out from under her.


	35. you're beautiful but you're broken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Kailee Morgue’s “Medusa”.

“So,” says Beau, casually, as she and Verrin stroll down the street, “you do a lot of punching for a living, right?”

“Depends on who hires me,” says Verrin. “Where’s this mythical stall you were going on about? We’re so fucking far off from your friends we may as well be on fucking Tal’Dorei.”

“Relax, it’s somewhere around here,” says Beau, making a show of looking around. They’re smack-dab in the middle of a crowd that’s gathered around a makeshift theater, with a half-elf woman in shitty costume armor woodenly reciting lines to a stick-thin human with wiry blonde hair. To the sides of the theater are refreshments: mead for the adults, water and something fizzy for the kids. “There it is,” she says, making a beeline for the mead.

“This is shitty mead,” says Verrin. “You brought me all the way here for shitty mead? You really are a tourist.”

“Maybe you just haven’t tried it yet,” Beau suggests, grabbing a tankard and flipping the vendor two gold. “How much for another one?”

“Yeah, see, thing is _I have_ ,” says Verrin, tapping her foot and glaring at the play like it’s personally offended her. “These people are so much fucking worse at making anything alcoholic than they are at putting on the same damn play they’ve been doing for years.”

“What’s it even about, anyway?” says Beau. Discreetly, she slides another two gold over to the vendor, and jerks her thumb at Verrin.

“The Lady Margaret and her knight,” says Verrin, “and their oh-so-tragic romance.” She sighs, and shakes her head. “They don’t even bother to get it right, they forgot the fucking—there was another knight, and they loved him too before some shit went down.”

“You know a lot about Lady Margaret,” says Beau, taking a sip of her mead. It’s sweet, goes down her throat as easily as water, but the burn kicks in right afterwards.

“Been living here a while, picked up on some shit here and there,” says Verrin. Her eyebrows pull together when the vendor presses a tankard of mead into her hands too. “I can buy my own fucking alcohol,” she says, but there’s not a lot of heat behind it.

“Eh, figured you deserved it,” says Beau. In the back of her mind, she hears Molly’s voice: _I left every town better than I found it._ If he could see her right now, she’s sure he’d be proud. “And hey, think about it this way, you have free alcohol.”

Verrin’s eyes slide away from her, towards the play. After a moment, she raises the tankard to her lips and starts drinking. Beau’s seen the look in her eyes before—it’s the same look Nott wears sometimes, that _need_ for something to calm her, a bottle to crawl into for just a few hours. It doesn’t surprise her that when Verrin finally lowers her tankard and wipes her mouth with her sleeve, she’s downed at least half of her drink.

“God, this tastes like a horse, a dog and a rat pissed in it at the same fucking time,” Verrin says. “I was told you found good mead. You have real fucking low standards for mead, Beau.”

“Aw, I knew you knew my name,” says Beau. “And I don’t have low standards. You’d be surprised how many people I’ve found water their beer down, and how many people make drinks that taste worse than piss.” She should know, anyway. Her parents run a vineyard, after all, and for all the shit her dad did, he’d taught her a couple things about selling wine too.

“Sounds like shit business,” says Verrin, before she downs the rest of her drink.

“Oh, it is,” says Beau, and she takes her drink slower than Verrin. Honestly, this mead isn’t all that bad. Beau’s had shitty drinks before, in seedy taverns and shady pubs, she knows what they taste like. This isn’t the best drink she’s ever had, not by far, but it’s sweet enough and it goes down easy, after a while. Builds a nice buzz in the back of her brain. Her standards may be too low, or Verrin’s may just be too high. “Long as it gets me drunk, I don’t really care.”

“I can understand that,” says Verrin, wiping at her mouth again. Her lips are very full, and Beau idly wonders what it would be like to kiss them. Kissing Verrin’s probably kinda like drinking, except the tankard’s likely to punch you or feel you up and also has boobs that you can maybe touch. She wouldn’t be a storm, though, Beau thinks, she wouldn’t taste like ozone and lightning, smell like the coming rain.

She shakes her head, clearing it of stormclouds. Yasha’s not even here. She downs the rest of her drink, then slams it back onto the stall’s counter. The vendor yelps a little, and Beau says, “It’s not even cracked, come on.”

“You could’ve cracked it!” the vendor huffs.

“But I didn’t,” says Beau. “Great mead, by the way,” she adds, as an afterthought, because—well. Trying to be nice, here. Leave things better than she found them and all, or even just make someone’s day a little brighter.

“Your date here doesn’t seem to think so,” says the vendor, nodding to Verrin.

“We’re not dating,” says Verrin, firmly. “I’m her tour guide.”

“Oh, hey, a tourist,” says the vendor. At the very least it hadn’t been said with that same air of deep annoyance that Beau keeps running into in this town, but jeez, now she feels thoroughly patronized. “How’re you enjoying our fair town so far? Do you want some more mead? It goes well with popcorn and a show!”

“Don’t buy it,” says Verrin, pinching the bridge of her nose. To the vendor, she says, “Fuck _off_ , your mead’s not worth half a copper piece dipped in dogshit.”

“Your guidance isn’t worth a tankard full of my old man’s piss,” the vendor cheerily says, raising a single finger in Verrin’s direction.

“Wouldn’t be surprised if that was an ingredient in this shit-ass excuse for mead,” Verrin snipes back. “Come on, let’s go. Better sights are this way.” And she nods at an alleyway just two houses down from the frankly horrific play being put on right now.

Beau downs the rest of her drink, and discreetly slides a gold coin across the counter. Then she sets off after Verrin, catching up with her fast even with the crowds pressing in to watch the play. One house, and they’re on the fringes of the crowd. Two, and they’re beyond. Verrin ducks into the alley, and Beau follows, a hand resting on her staff. She likes Verrin, a _lot_ , but she’s been doing this for too damn long not to be a little bit cautious.

Fat lot of good that does her, because Verrin apparently just melts into the shadows, and Beau has just enough time to realize that oh, right, she’s got the same weird blood shit as Molly when a heavy weight crashes into her side. A second later, Verrin’s arm slams her up against the wall and presses into her throat, her dark eyes glaring right into Beau’s. And they’re _dark_ like the night sky, this time, black veins crawling up her neck.

 _Oh, shit,_ Beau thinks.

“What,” says Verrin, with the tranquil calm of someone who is deeply, _deeply_ pissed off, “were you and your friends talking about, earlier?”

“What?” says Beau, her voice a little hoarse on account of the arm pressing into her throat. “We talk about a lot of stuff, you’re gonna need to be a little more specific.”

“All right,” says Verrin. “You were talking about me.” She presses in deeper, and Beau remembers suddenly the things she’s seen Molly do. Like, say, blind someone with a tilt of his head and a burst of blood. “What was it about?”

“Just tips, is all,” Beau wheezes.

Verrin tilts her head, her solidly black eyes narrowing. She sucks in a pained breath, lets it out in a hiss, before leaning in close. “ _Liar,_ ” she says in Beau’s ear. “I’m going to ask again, so think very, _very_ carefully about what you’re going to answer, because if there’s one thing I hate more than shitty booze, it’s knowing that someone kept something from me that they _know_ I want to know.”

“Why would you wanna know?” Beau manages. Suck in little breaths, that’s the trick. Her hands reach up, clamping around Verrin’s arm, but she doesn’t try to push her away just yet.

“Because I’ve told you and your buddies a hell of a lot about me so far,” says Verrin. “Because I’m a big fucking believer in not throwing in with people who just might get me killed. Because you’re keeping something and I got a damn good feeling I _know_ what you’re trying to keep from me.”

“Whaddaya think,” says Beau, “we’re keeping from you?”

“Who’s Tiffany?” says Verrin.

Ah, shit.

\--

The second they step through the threshold of Lestra’s shop, Fjord sees a change coming over Molly—his eyes go wide, the tension in his shoulders visibly leaves, and he steps behind Fjord, like a kid scared of getting lost. If Fjord didn’t know any better, he’d think Molly really had been Feebleminded. As things stand, it’s a damn convincing performance.

Has some disturbing implications, too. He very carefully avoids thinking too long on those. There are times for rage and righteous fury and this is not one of them.

“Hel _lo_ ,” Lestra proclaims, coming through the curtain again, throwing her arms wide with the grace and style of a showman, her leg sticking out of a slit in her glittery, flame-red dress. Fjord glances sideways at Molly, sees the mask crack just a little to show an impressed smile before Molly buries it under a vague, almost childishly fascinated look. “Dear customers! Welcome to—oh. Hello, Sword.”

“Fjord,” says Fjord, heaving a deep sigh.

“And who’s your friend?” Lestra asks, adding a little sway to her hips as she steps closer. Fjord swallows, keeps his eyes trained somewhere to the left of her shoulder. Molly steps away, keeping Fjord’s bulk in front of Lestra, and Fjord very carefully does not look at Molly. He’s pretty sure he’s going to see a barely-repressed cackle behind that blank mask of his. He knows Molly all too well. Molly’s having fun.

“This is Molly,” he says. “He, ah. He’s the friend we were talking about—”

“Oh, the unfortunate one,” says Lestra. “The one you’re going to so much trouble for.”

 _You have no idea,_ thinks Fjord. “Yup,” he says, out loud. “We agreed I’d be watching out for him today, he kinda gets everywhere when we don’t.”

“And you brought him in the middle of a festival?” says Lestra, scratching her head.

“We weren’t exactly planning on stopping here,” says Fjord. “Believe me, if we did, we’d have better timing than this.”

“I wasn’t being judgmental, I’m very glad you brought him,” says Lestra, reaching out towards Molly’s horn, as if to admire the dangling charms. “Enjoying the festival, sweetie?”

Molly flinches away from her touch, and that’s not an act, that’s _real_. Fjord can tell because he feels Molly’s fingers digging in deep into his arm. He’s seen him do it, too, just—gods, _days_ ago, actually, when Jester had first tried to heal his tail. Fjord had looked, and maybe he’s not the most perceptive of the Mighty Nein, but the way Molly had looked just then, like a cornered, half-feral animal—

It’s almost the same look he’s got now.

Fjord sticks his arm out, steps in between Molly and Lestra. “Why don’t we keep from poking him, yeah?” he says, keeping his voice light and steady. Molly’s hiding behind him now, and it’s not quite so much an act as it was just a minute ago. “He’s not a curiosity.”

“Okay, okay,” says Lestra, holding her hands up. “I am terribly sorry, Polly.”

“Molly,” says Fjord, firmly. “I don’t care if you get my name wrong, you can do that all you like, but Molly’s dealing with enough shit right now.”

“Molly, then,” says Lestra, and to her credit, at least she seems a little bit apologetic, far more than the woman in the stories Beau told him. Then again, it’s been years since they knew each other. It’s not impossible that she’s changed—maybe not enough to not be cheap, but enough to know when to back down from trying to push for her fun, at least. She pats her knees like she’s talking to a dog, and bends slightly to meet Molly’s red eyes. “Hello, Molly! I’m Lestra,” she says, carefully enunciating each word.

Fjord resists chortling at the look on Molly’s face, but just barely. “It’s fine, she’s friendly,” he says out loud, and feels Molly’s grip relax. One of his hands leaves Fjord’s bicep, trailing down to his back. A second later, a finger flicks into his back, and Fjord just barely manages to tamp his reaction down. Then he realizes: there’s just the one finger.

He looks at Molly, who’s—still wearing that vague, wide-eyed expression, like a kid who’s not quite sure he can trust the stranger he’s being introduced to. He’d almost believe that if Molly hadn’t just _flipped him off_ , literally behind his back.

Goddamn, he missed him.

Lestra doesn’t notice any of this, instead cocking her hip just so. “What’s this about, then, Told?” she asks, and Fjord doesn’t even bother to correct her anymore. So long as she’s not doing it to Molly, she can mispronounce Fjord’s monosyllabic name all she likes.

“We talked to the Dogs of Hell,” says Fjord. “Verrin told us a little bit about them, and we, ah, found them in some troubled times.”

Lestra stares at him, her eyes narrowing. “The Dogs, huh?” she asks, flatly, all trace of an accent gone.

“We agreed to help them out, in exchange for them backing off from you and giving us a little more information on Rattlesnake’s dealings,” says Fjord. “Especially concerning your warehouse.”

“And you’re sure they’re not going to turn around and bite you on the ass just as soon as their old master decides to take them back?” Lestra asks.

“I’m sure that they ain’t gonna be too pleased about the fact that he had one of them beaten up for talking back to him,” says Fjord.

“...yeah, that would work,” Lestra says, after a moment of shock. “Damn. Point made. They care about each other above all, something like that’s practically a declaration of war.” Her eyes narrow, and she says, “You’d still need to be careful, of course. That Ronwell’s a bastard who looks out for his gang’s best interests first and foremost. He’ll sell you up shit’s creek without a boat the second he smells profit in it.”

“Wouldn’t be the first person to try that on us,” Fjord says. “He’ll find we’re a little hard to sell.”

“Uh-huh,” says Lestra. She tilts her head to the side, and nods towards Molly, who tilts his head right back at her, like a puppy imitating its mother. “You know, Jord, just a few days ago you just wanted some diamond dust for your buddy here. Now you’re getting involved with the Dogs and wading right into the thick of it.”

“Yeah, it’s a real slop-dolly,” Fjord drawls. “Long as we get that dust, though, it’ll be well worth it.”

The charms on Molly’s horns jingle lightly as he turns his head to look at Fjord. He smiles, a small, soft thing.

Lestra sighs. “Is that it, then?” she asks. “You just came by to tell me you’re teaming up with the Dogs for—what, exactly?”

“We came by to tell you that because we made the deal with you first,” says Fjord. “And because they asked us to help them out with a couple of missing persons. Thought you might know something about that—rumors, maybe, though we would appreciate it if you had anything concrete to give us, so at the very least, we won’t be disadvantaged in dealing with them.”

“Ah,” says Lestra. “Well. I think I can give you that.” She steps aside, and grandly sweeps her hand out towards her curtain, now depicting the Empire’s allowed gods in all their splendor and glory, save for the Raven Queen. “Right this way,” she says, “and I’ll tell you boys—well, boy and tiefling—a story.”


	36. if you need me, let me know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from ABBA's "Take A Chance on Me".
> 
> at some point I really ought to call a cut-off to how much of canon this fic can reasonably follow, considering ep 48. let's see what happens this Thursday, yeah?

The Dogs’ bar looks just as terrible in the daylight as it does in the dark of night. The only thing that’s changed is that there is now a small stall of strange cakes to the side of it, with a very, very familiar man shouting, “Four copper for one’a these fruit-and-meatcakes, and that’s cuttin’ me own throat!”

“One of these _what_ ,” says Caleb as they pass by, sounding stunned.

Unfortunately, the man seems to notice them, as he all but topples over his own cart when he sees them. “Here, here!” he calls, and Yasha turns around to blink at him and his new wares. “Lassie and laddie! I know _you two_ , come on over here and try my new _cull-nay-ry confections_ —”

“When did you meet ol’ Throat?” asks the goliath thug, backtracking and turning around to squint at the meat pie vendor and his brand new cakes. “Wait, did you _try_ his meat pies?”

“They didn’t taste that bad,” Yasha says, stepping closer.

“They got _rats_ in them,” says the thug. “Rats and other things. You _ate_ one?”

“Oh, that explains it,” says Yasha, snapping her fingers. She _knew_ it tasted pretty good, under all the onions and strange sauces. “I liked it. It could’ve used a little more frying, but I liked it.”

“I’ll be takin’ that under consideration, lassie-dear!” says Throat. “But in the meantime, why don’t you and your good friend here try my new fruit-and-meatcakes, hm? Guaranteed to put hairs on y’chest! Even _you_ , lassie!”

“What’s in it this time?” says the thug, narrowing his eyes. “Cat?”

Caleb takes a step back, clutching his cat slightly closer to his chest, and says, “Actually, we were—we were just going. Right, Yasha?

“It couldn’t hurt,” says Yasha, glancing at the cakes. What’s that Molly always said? Seize the day, or something like that. Well, she may as well seize the cake while she’s here. She steps closer, glancing down at the cakes and scratching her chin. They all look vaguely gelatinous, to her, with bits of fruit and meat floating on the outside of the jelly.

“But it’s got _things_ in it,” says the thug. “Things that aren’t fruit or meat! Like a whole human finger!”

“Are there any human fingers in there?” Yasha asks.

“I guarantee that there are no human fingers or body parts at all,” says Throat, solemnly. He holds one hand up, and Yasha notes with some alarm that he doesn’t have a pinky. “ _Guarantee_. In fact, if you find one, I’ll let you buy another one for _two_ coppers, and that’s—”

“Cutting your own throat, yes, we know,” says the thug, breaking in. “Listen, Throat, there’s a couple more important things we oughta be doing right now, okay?”

“Hey,” says Yasha. “Let me try one cake, all right? You said Ronwell was going to be a little busy anyway, let me just have one.” She pauses, then glances at Caleb. “Would Frumpkin like one too?” she asks.

“Ah, no,” says Caleb, and his cat bats at his cheek, annoyed. “You don’t know what is in those!” Caleb huffs, turning to his cat. “It could have something other than rat. Don’t start.”

“What is he doing?” the goliath thug whispers, eyes going wide as dinner plates. If he opens them any further, they may actually pop out of his eye sockets, and then Yasha would feel a little bit sorry for the little child he apparently is taking care of.

She hands over the four coppers, and takes a slice of fruit-and-meatcake. There is, blessedly, no human finger or other body parts floating in it, although she half-thinks she can see a tail in there. She takes a bite, and it crunches right in her mouth. It’s—new, definitely, sweet and then tangy and then sour, but it isn’t unpleasant.

Caleb and the goliath thug take a single step backwards.

“It isn’t bad,” says Yasha, after swallowing. “It could do with a little more cooking and a little less sweet. Maybe try oranges?”

Throat whispers, “Nobody’s ever given me cons-truk-tib cri-ti-sissem before,” in tones of shock and awe. “I will take your advice under serious consideration, lassie! Meanwhile, have another one!”

“Later, maybe,” says Yasha, with some regret. “I do still have something I need to do. But I’ll come by again, these are pretty good.”

Throat doesn’t say anything, his eyes watering just a little bit, smile beginning to break like dawn over his weathered old face. Yasha steps cautiously away, waving a small goodbye, and turns back to Caleb and the goliath thug. “This is pretty good,” she says to them. “You’re sure you don’t want this?”

“Oh my god,” whispers the thug. “You actually think that?”

“She is not in the habit of lying,” says Caleb.

“You’re a fucking badass,” says the thug, starting to walk again, leading them up to the door. Yasha falls in behind him, nods to the bouncer who narrows his beady little eyes and glares at her. Apparently he remembers her.

He sticks his hand out before Caleb can walk inside. “Hold on, who’s this?” he rumbles, leaning right into Caleb’s space. “He _smells_.”

“ _Ja,_ ” says Caleb, scratching Frumpkin behind the ears and very discreetly leaning away from the bouncer, uncomfortable. Yasha’s gut twinges in sympathy. Social interaction has never been all that easy for her, outside of her tribe, Zuala, the circus and the Mighty Nein. “That happens when you have been traveling for a while.”

“He’s with me,” says Yasha, deciding not to point out that the bar smells worse than Caleb does, at least right now. She can still smell sweat and stale beer, blood and vomit and worse. Caleb smells earthy at most, and a little bit like the spell components he keeps in his coat. “Let him in.” To underline her point, she narrows her eyes at the bouncer, lifts her chin to meet his gaze. She doesn’t have to lift her head very much.

The bouncer grunts, unhappy, but steps back to let Caleb scurry through. “Leave the cat outside,” he rumbles.

“The cat stays,” says Yasha.

“I can poof him out,” says Caleb, “he is a magic cat. And we will need someone to keep an eye out.” His hand wanders up, worriedly scratching at Frumpkin’s ears. It shakes, just a little bit, just enough.

“The cat,” says Yasha, calm as dark clouds rolling in, “stays.” She takes a bite out of her fruit-and-meatcake, staring the bouncer down.

“...okay,” says the bouncer, meekly, staring at her in shock and awe. “Wait, wait just a second. Is that Throat’s?”

Yasha chews, swallows, and says, “Yes. It’s very good.”

“She’s not lying, she really does think it’s good,” says the other goliath, the thug who led them to the bar. “She said she was gonna come _back_ and ask for more.”

“What are you?” says the bouncer, recoiling visibly from Yasha before he hurriedly shuts the door, leaving them inside the bar. It’s still a little dim, but not quite as well-populated as it had been the night before. There’s a half-elf woman with the shape of a dog’s silhouette shaved into the side of her hair who’s tending to the bar now, wiping down the counter. She looks up when they walk in, smiles tiredly, and gives them a nod.

The thug walks up to her, passes over a few silver, and says, “Hey, Avey, how’s Ghav?”

“Doing fine, Zin, but thanks,” she says, giving a wan smile. “You’ll be wanting the usual, then?”

“Please, it’s been a strange day,” says the thug—Zin, apparently. “How’s the boss-man’s meeting going?”

“Drumming up support for kicking the ass of the man who has Lynbroke’s balls in a vice is going about as well as expected,” says Avey, sardonic. “Which is to say: not well at all.” She puts a cracked, chipped tankard down in front of Zin, and says, “Don’t you slam it onto the counter now, you heathen. I just cleaned it.”

“That was _Morty_ , not me,” Zin complains. “Is it my fault you all can’t tell goliaths apart?”

“Morty treats his tankard like it’s made of the finest porcelain,” says Avey. “ _You_ , on the other hand, are single-handedly responsible for half the cracks on this counter.” She smacks his shoulder, then flicks her hand out towards a farther table. “Go on, get. You brought me new folk and frankly I’d rather talk to them than your dumb old mug.”

Yasha kind of likes this girl already. For all her blunt words, there’s a fondness under them, like she cares about these people she’s talking to. At the very least she cares about their money.

“They’re here to talk to Ronwell,” says Zin. “You’ll see ‘em in?”

“Of course,” says Avey, waving him off. She looks to Yasha now, her brown eyes checking her over and widening just a fraction at the fruit-and-meatcake in her hand, already half-eaten. It’s sort of funny, actually, that she’s intimidating people all the more with a single slice of cake and the huge sword strapped to her back. “I’ve never seen anyone take more than one bite of Throat’s shit before. You guys the tourists that swung by last night and healed Ghav?”

“Caleb wasn’t here, but yes,” says Yasha. “Fjord and—and Fiona were, though.” She grimaces as the lie of Jester’s name passes her lips, flat and unconvincing.

“And you didn’t bring them?” Avey asks, tilting her head to the side.

“They had other things to worry about and a festival they wanted to enjoy,” says Caleb, absently scritching Frumpkin behind the ears. The cat purrs, a soft rumbling sound of contentment, and gently rams his head against Caleb’s palm. “I volunteered to accompany Yasha, this time.”

“Of course it’s the festival,” sighs Avey, setting out two tankards and a bowl of milk. Caleb glances at Frumpkin, who meows, irritated, and then jumps off his shoulder, landing on the counter to start licking at the milk. “What would you tourists like? I like your cat, by the way.”

“He is a magic cat,” says Caleb. “Do you want to see?”

“How is he—” starts Avey, before Caleb snaps his fingers. All of a sudden, a fluffy weight settles onto Yasha’s shoulders, and Frumpkin purrs against her skin. His sandpaper tongue licks against her cheek, and she huffs out a quiet laugh, tearing off a small piece of cake and holding it up to his mouth. With great dignity, Frumpkin licks the piece off her fingers.

Caleb, beside Yasha, makes a small noise, face scrunching up. He doesn’t make any move to stop Frumpkin, though.

“I think that might count as cannibalism, if you got that from Throat,” says Avey, but her eyes are wide as dinner plates, and trained on Frumpkin.

Caleb shuts his eyes, sighs, and shakes his head. “Can we please just have some ale?” he asks. “And how long will this meeting take?”

“We just have some good news for him, that’s all,” says Yasha.

“Tends to vary, honestly,” says Avey. “Sometimes the leaders are feeling chatty, sometimes they just want a quick deal. It really depends.” She pauses, then tilts her head to the side. “Although I think it should be ending right about now.”

“How do you know?” Yasha asks.

Avey nods to the doors leading towards the innermost sanctum. A second later, a goblin with half an ear flies through them, his face skidding against the bloody, dirty floor. A second later, three knives are thrown at him, and one of them manages to nick his thigh as he slowly staggers to his feet.

“Yez maniacs, the lot’f ye!” the goblin shouts, as he snatches the knives back up, not seeming to notice the blood streaming from his leg. He stumbles back towards the door. “ _Maniacs_! Snake’s gonna swallow ye whole!”

“He’s welcome to fucking try!” Ronwell roars, pushing the doors open, eyes wild and angry. “Fucking—Avey! _Tell me_ you’ve got some—Miss Yasha? What’re you doing here?”

“We came to say yes,” says Yasha. “We came to take your deal.”

“Well, fuck me,” says Ronwell, slumping into a chair, all the anger seeping out of him. “Something good’s come out of this day after all.” He pauses, then frowns. “My gods. Is that _Throat’s_?”

\--

“That was fun!” Twiggy cheers, as she clambers down off Nott in a not-so-dank, festively decorated alleyway, where a drunk is sleeping underneath a warm, fuzzy blanket. Her first day back with the Mighty Nein, and it’s already almost as exciting as it was on the ocean! There aren’t any dragons yet, thankfully, but it might just be a matter of time until one shows up. Twiggy wouldn’t really be all that surprised if it did. Things tend to kind of get really weird around her friends. “Where’s Jester?”

“Distraction duty,” says Nott, pulling out her copper wire.

“Where’s everyone else?”

“Other duties,” says Nott. “Caduceus is off at his temple, though, he isn’t in town right now. We did meet back up with someone I think you’d like, only,” and she pauses, chewing on her lower lip, “he’s the friend I was talking about, the one whose head got fucked with. He’s—not always in the best state.”

“What do you mean?” Twiggy asks.

Nott wrings her hands in front of her, chewing on her lip, then tucks some strands of green hair behind her large ears. “You know how Caleb doesn’t really smile as much as he should?” she says. “Well. Some years ago someone—hurt him, very badly, and it took him a very, very long time to get better. He’s still getting better.” She rocks on her heels. “And the same people who hurt Caleb took one of our members, when we thought he was dead, and they did the same to him.”

“So,” says Twiggy, slowly, starting to understand, “he’s like Caleb?”

“Not exactly,” says Nott. “He smiles easier. But sometimes something might happen, or someone might say a word or do the wrong thing, and he’ll just go blank and try to stab one of us.”

And there’s the weird bit. Twiggy stares at her. “He _what_ ,” she says, worry twisting in her gut. What kind of friend stabs their friend? That doesn’t sound very nice at all.

“It isn’t his fault!” says Nott. “It’s sort of—it’s like sleepwalking, he doesn’t know what he’s doing and he wouldn’t be doing it if he did know.” She gathers up the cleric robes, hugs them close to her chest. “He always wakes up afterwards, and then he gets very miserable. Just—be understanding. Molly’s really very nice.”

Molly, huh? Twiggy’s known a few Mollys in her time, but a lot of them were squirrels and rats and other little animals. She relaxes, because a lot of the Mollys she’s known have been very nice, and from what Nott says, her friend isn’t any different. “Okay,” she says. “Where is he now?”

“He’s with Fjord,” says Nott. “Y’know, Captain Tusktooth.”

“Oh, yeah!” says Twiggy. “I—guess he wouldn’t be captain anymore, if he’s not on a ship? I mean, I don’t know for sure, but I’ve read some books.”

“Orly still thinks he’s captain,” says Nott. “But honestly? He’s captain _sometimes_ , and a real bastard other times.” There’s a fondness in her voice, though, as she holds her wire up to her mouth. “Anyway, just hold on for a second, okay, Twiggy? I’m gonna message Jester, see what’s keeping her.”


	37. got nothing to hide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Striking Matches’ “Shameless”. oh, the irony.
> 
> also, we’re going on hiatus for a week! the story will be back on Feb. 13, the day before Valentine’s Day. I love this story and I want to see it through to the end, but at the moment I need a bit of time off to relax and also write a longer chapter. thanks for all your support!

One of the things Jester had never been told about clerics is this: when you’re responsible for making sure your friends don’t die, that starts to extend to other people, like it or not. Like, sure, she’s down with wrecking somebody’s face with a lollipop, she always will be, but she supposes the sign of a pretty good cleric is knowing when to swing her lollipop and when to heal.

Maybe she should add a third option now? For dragging probably-brainwashed clerics away from crowds? Eh.

She pulls Janille away from the crowd, back into the same alleyway she saw the half-elf cleric burst out from. The window’s still open, but there’s no way up from here. It’d be super suspicious if the window was still open, though, so Jester holds out her hand. The magic pushes out of her in a brief burst, and slams the window shut.

Janille doesn’t stir, even with the noise. Then again, the festival’s way louder than one little window shutting closed. Instead she murmurs, again, “Ver?”

“Wrong,” Jester mutters, hauling her up. The movement causes Janille’s sleeve to shift to the side, and—is that a crystal, embedded into her skin?

What had Caleb said about his time with Ikithon, back in Felderwin? The man had—oh. Oh.

Jester manages not to puke up her dessert right there in the alleyway. Instead, she half-drags, half-carries her down the alleyway, and then freezes in place when Nott’s voice drops into her head out of nowhere: _Jester! We’re in an alleyway in front of something called the Slayer’s Cake, where are you? You can reply to this message!_

“I’m still at the Shield’s Grace, give me a second,” says Jester, out loud, her thoughts still racing, spinning around that glimpse of gently glowing crystal. “I’ve got to do something first, Janille just up and _fainted_ on me.”

Nott doesn’t respond, and after a moment, the connection between them fizzles out. Jester sighs, then hauls Janille back up onto her feet. The other cleric gives a soft noise, and Jester frowns. Then, with a brief effort of will, she casts a disguise on herself: a pretty half-elf with long dark hair, blue eyes, and a lovely blue dress that might be a little bit like Molly’s new dress, with the flowers creeping up the sides.

“S’rry,” Janille murmurs, her eyes still closed. “She wants—I dunno, who were you, why’s she tryin’ to break you?”

“What are you talking about?” Jester huffs, dragging her out of the alleyway and avoiding the crowds that are passing them by. “Excuse me!” she chirps. “Excuse me, coming through, my friend is super drunk and I have to get her back to her inn.”

“Go fuck yourself!” somebody shouts back.

“Go fuck _your_ self!” Jester yells, raising her middle finger in their direction. “Stupid!”

She stomps down the path to the Shield’s Grace’s cozy door then kicks it open and shouts into the stunned crowd of patrons, “Hey guys I need some help with my drunk friend here! She’s _really really_ drunk, she had like six whole bottles of sand-kheg’s hide!”

“Oh, shit, how is she even alive,” says the bartender, vaulting over the counter and rushing over to take Janille from her. “Good _lord_ , little lady, who gave you that much? What were they trying to do, kill you?”

Janille stirs for the briefest of moments, just for long enough to mumble, “What?” Then she passes out onto the bartender.

“What’s her room?” says the bartender, with a sigh. “I’ll take her up there.”

“I don’t know, she never told me which room she was in,” says Jester, letting her accent slip into something a little more like Lynbroke’s, rude and harsh. “But she said she was rooming here for the festival! She said it was really hard trying to get one with all the _tourists_ coming into town.” She places just enough disgusted emphasis on the word that the bartender winces in sympathy. “I have to go, gosh, I have another friend waiting on me!”

The bartender squints at her, and says, “Wait, wait. But what about _this_ friend?”

“She’s had way worse,” says Jester.

“Well, I’m sure this friend of yours can manage a few more minutes waiting on you,” says the bartender, eyes narrowing towards her, “but six bottles of sand-kheg’s hide is dangerous territory for anyone, even someone used to drinking the stronger stuff. Your friend _here_ needs you more, wouldn’t you say?”

Nott’s voice rings like a bell in the back of Jester’s head: _Uh, Jester? Can you give me an update on what’s going on? Because we just messaged Beau and she’s in big trouble, and we can’t stay here, are you okay? You can reply to this message!_

“ _NottI’mintrouble,_ ” Jester whispers in response. Out loud, she says, “Oh, look! Over there! Is that a _unicorn_?”

“What?” says the bartender, whipping around in surprise. “What are you talking about—”

Jester shoves her hands outwards, a whisper of will pushing open the windows of the tavern, the force of her magic slamming into the wooden windows so hard that the noise rings loudly through the inn. She snaps a finger, and her duplicate shimmers into existence as she bolts for one of the open windows, dodging the bartender’s grasping hands.

She jumps out of the window, tucking into a roll as she hits the ground. She springs up to her feet and bolts down the path.

“Someone call the guards!” someone shouts behind her.

_Jester?! Jester, what’s happening?! You can reply to this message! Please reply to this message!_

“Don’t worry, Nott!” yells Jester. “I can outrun guards just fine! _I really hope so!_ ” _Traveler, get me out of here, get me anywhere where there are no guards and where I can be near my friends,_ she prays, racing into an alleyway and flinging her hand out, sparkles of magic flickering to life around her fingertips. She flicks them out, and a pink door that’s just her size opens up in front of her.

She dives into the portal.

A second later, it winks out.

\--

“Who’s Tiffany?”

“For someone who said her goal was getting paid so she could get more booze,” says Beau, her voice a little bit hoarse from, y’know, the part where her throat’s getting crushed, “you’re weirdly curious about what’s pretty clearly our business.”

“I could latch on to any other goddamn tourist in this shithole to get paid,” says Verrin, but her eyes flick briefly to the side, off to the mouth of the alleyway, and for a moment her grip loosens just enough for Beau to be able to start sucking in deep breaths again. “But you were talking about me. And yeah, I’ve seen how you look at me, but this wasn’t that.” Her arm presses in close again. “Who’s Tiffany?”

“Pirate captain,” Beau grits out between her teeth. “Back in Darktow.”

For a moment she half-thinks that Verrin is going to crush her throat, then and there. The woman seems angry and belligerent enough, the black veins in her neck pulsing in time with Beau’s heartbeat. Her arm presses in close, close enough that Beau’s vision starts to darken at the edges—

—then lets up. She doesn’t let go of Beau just yet, but at least Beau can fucking _breathe_ now. She sucks in a breath, and god, air has never felt so good before.

“A pirate captain, huh,” says Verrin, flatly.

A pretty hot one, although that had been offset by the part where she was a fucking cultist. “Yep,” says Beau. “Her real name’s Avantika, but we call her Tiffany as a codename.” Something itches in the back of Beau’s mind, and a second later Nott’s voice rings in her skull: _Beau! We’re in front of the Slayer’s Cake, how’s it going with Verrin? You can reply to this message._

Beau gulps, audibly, and hopes that gets across. Judging from the little _oh shit_ she hears from the other end of the connection before it fizzles out, it does. Which means Nott is going to be here in—five minutes, tops. That’s fine. That’s fine. All she has to do is keep Verrin occupied until Nott gets here.

“Just the pirate captain?” says Verrin, narrowing her eyes. “What’s she got to do with Lynbroke, then? We’re not big on pirates here.”

 _Not a thing, she’s dead._ “She’s tangentially related,” says Beau, carefully, looking Verrin in her solidly red eyes, interrupted only by black pupils. It’s almost unsettling, but Beau swallows the discomfort and pushes it back down into the bottom of her gut. “We were decoding some of her letters last night, and it turns out she used to supply someone named Rojen with stolen goods in exchange for information on a very valuable artifact she was chasing down.”

“So you figured it was probably Rattlesnake she was talking about,” says Verrin. Her grip loosens all the more.

“And you seemed pretty clear on not wanting to poke that shit with a ten-foot pole,” says Beau. “We figured you wouldn’t mind if we kept that shit from you. Didn’t realize you overheard us.”

“And you only just found this out last night?”

“I said we were decoding her letters,” says Beau. She’s walking a tightrope here, and it hangs high above the ground. If she missteps, it could easily be turned into a noose around her neck. “She wrote all her shit in this really complicated cipher, she was that paranoid. It’s taken us a while to get through even half of them. Imagine how surprised we were when one of the letters mentioned a _Rojen_ by name.”

“Pretty fucking surprised, I’d guess,” says Verrin, warily, but the unnatural red-and-black of her eyes fades back into something more human. Beau relaxes once more. “Why the codenames, though?”

“We’re that paranoid too,” says Beau, and that much isn’t a lie. “Listen, if anything about her comes up, we’ll loop you in, I swear—”

“ _Miss Beau!_ ” comes a shriek, and Verrin pulls away from her with a surprised curse, as an arrow whizzes past their heads. “Back off from her!”

“What the fuck,” says Verrin.

“Oh my god, _Twiggy_?” says Beau, whipping around to see: yep, that’s Twiggy, she’d recognize that rat’s nest hair anywhere. She swears under her breath, then steps in front of Verrin, to keep Twiggy from getting another shot in. “Twiggy! Hey, no! No shooting at our tour guide! She’s friendly!”

“The _fuck_ , you got a gnome too?” Verrin asks. “How many of you are there in your weird little group?”

“I’m an honorary member,” says Twiggy, helpfully.

“Counting her right now, there’s like, eight of us,” says Beau. “Counting a member that’s currently on vacation, there’s nine.” Which means they’re now truly the Mighty Nein, she realizes, as soon as the words have come out of her mouth, but that she keeps to herself. She’ll break the news to Caleb later, see how he feels about them being no longer ironic. “Verrin, that’s Twiggy. Twiggy, that’s Verrin. What’re you doing here?”

Twiggy lowers her shortbow and skips up to Beau. “Nott told me to come find you,” she says. “She was going to look for Jester, because last she heard Jester was in trouble too. So we split up and I told Trixie to scout around!” On cue, a squirrel leaps up onto Beau’s shoulder and chitters away. “Are you okay? It sounded like you were in trouble.”

“Yeah, but I talked my way out of it,” says Beau. She very gingerly takes the squirrel off her shoulder, glances at Verrin. “We came to an understanding, let’s say. A very fruitful one.”

“Nott seemed pretty worried,” says Twiggy, “and, oh, yeah! We picked some stuff up from this lady’s room, I’ve got it in my pouch right here—”

“Uh, no, wait, hey, _put that away_ ,” says Beau, quickly bolting forward to grab Twiggy’s arm, before she can open her pouch and give away who they’re really looking into. She leans in close in her ear to whisper, “Wait until she’s gone and we’re back at our inn, there’s a few things we can’t tell her about.”

“Oh!” says Twiggy, a little too loudly. “Ooh, yeah, I can keep a secret!” She winks, so obviously that Beau glances over at Verrin, who’s narrowed her eyes at Twiggy.

“If this is about your sketchy-ass and paranoid pirate captain, I already know,” says Verrin.

Twiggy blinks at her, and says, “Pirate captain?”

Beau claps her hand over Twiggy’s mouth, fixes a grin onto her face. “Yep, pirate captain,” she says, a little hurriedly as she hauls Twiggy up from the ground. She’s as light as Nott is, which alarms Beau a little, because Nott thinks rats are a valid source of protein.

Twiggy makes muffled noises behind her hand. Then she sticks her tongue out, and _oh god_ that is absolutely not the kind of contact with bodily fluids Beau thought she’d be dealing with when Verrin pulled her into an alleyway. She pulls her hand away, wiping the saliva off on her robe and holding Twiggy close.

“Anyway, we gotta go,” she says. “I’ll, uh, see you ‘round later?”

“Probably, probably not,” says Verrin, watching Twiggy with narrowed eyes. Then she glances at Beau, and it just might be a trick of the light, but she _swears_ Verrin’s eyes go solidly black again for just a moment, for just the space of a heartbeat. Like a threat, somehow.

Beau shivers, and skedaddles as fast as she can, with Twiggy in her arms.

“Who _was_ that?” says Twiggy.

“One of the locals,” says Beau. “Saw her punching a guy in the face, I guess you could say she made an impression.”

“Oh, okay,” says Twiggy. “She seems—intense.”

“She is,” says Beau, thoughts wandering to Verrin’s arm pressed up against her throat. Then she shakes her head, pushing past a couple of already-drunk kids laughing, stomping and singing, _we will, we will rock you_ at the top of their lungs. “When did you get here, anyway?”

“Just before the festival started!” Twiggy chirps. “I heard it’d keep going for nine days and I thought it would be really fun. Also, I kinda sorta stole something again—not another happy fun ball! Just a necklace with a pretty cool trick.”

“You gonna show us that cool trick?” Beau asks, a little interested now.

“Definitely!” Twiggy says. “But it kind of needs one of you guys to try and attack me first before it activates. And it’s only like, three times a day, I think. But I didn’t use it at all today.” She squirms around in Beau’s arms. “Can you put me up on your shoulders? It’s a little hard to see.”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” says Beau, loosening her grip so Twiggy can clamber up onto her shoulder and _ow_ , how does Caleb do this with Nott all the time? This is literally a pain in her neck. “Where’s everybody right now?”

“Last I saw Nott, she was in front of the Slayer’s Cake, but she might’ve taken off to go find Jester,” says Twiggy. “She was really freaking out over where to go first, you guys were both in trouble and she didn’t know who was in a worse mess, so I told her I’d go and get you.” She puffs her chest up. “I’ve gotten really good at fighting since the last time we met.”

“Yeah, I noticed, that arrow was real close,” says Beau. Jester’s probably fine, right?

...Jester and Nott are going to be fine, right?

...who is she kidding?

“Where was that Slayer’s Cake again?” Beau asks. “And where would you guess Nott would go first?”

Twiggy chews on her lower lip, as if mulling it over. Then she whispers something to her squirrel, who darts away from the two of them, expertly weaving in and out of the crush of feet. “Trixie will find her!” she proudly says.

Beau very quietly thanks whatever deity is out there that Molly is _not here_ , because if he knew they were relying on a squirrel to find Nott? He would _never_ let her live it down.


	38. time's gonna pay your dues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Guns N’ Roses’ “Hair of the Dog”.

“What do you think of her so far?” Fjord whispers to Molly, just before the two of them step through the curtain.

Molly crosses his arms, huffs out an indignant breath. “She’s an utter arsehole and I can see why Beau broke up with her,” he says, leaning closer to Fjord’s ear to whisper, just in case. He might be pretending to be Feebleminded at the moment, but Lestra talked to him like she was talking to a toddler or a particularly shy dog. That’s just rude. “I didn’t know there were so many ways to mangle a single syllable. Think I might try that one time, honestly.”

“Yeah, sure, just not on me,” Fjord mutters, and Molly consolingly pats his shoulder. He doesn’t stride on ahead like he really wants to, mostly because from what he remembers, people who get hit with Feeblemind don’t tend to run ahead into unfamiliar things. Not unless they’re attention-grabbing in some way. So he stays behind Fjord, instead, staying on his heels like a particularly colorful shadow.

He can’t quite resist a sharp gasp, when he steps into a very opulently-decorated inner chamber. Lestra might be an asshole, but she has an impeccable taste in decoration, and he doesn’t have to fake the wide-eyed wonder very much.

Okay, maybe he is faking the wonder part a bit. He’s seen opulence before, but this is a sharp contrast to the shop outside, somewhat cozy but definitely tacky and cheap. Anybody who doesn’t step into this inner chamber would likely never think of— _this_ , really. Makes him think of that time he played a lost Marquesian prince, long ago.

“Welcome to my inner sanctum,” says Lestra, grandly sweeping her hands out and spinning on her heel. Her dark hair fans out behind her, a touch of drama that Molly is pretty sure she absolutely planned. He can respect that about her, as a fellow flashy-ass showperson himself. Never mind the nameless, broken part of him that notes, clinically, that it’s a very long handhold, easy to grab onto in a fight. Molly tries very hard not to listen to that part of himself. “This is where I keep the good stuff. And I see your friend over here’s _fascinated._ ”

Molly doesn’t pay her any attention, instead moving away from Fjord to start a slow circuit of the room. He twitches another tapestry aside under the pretense of feeling up the admittedly-soft material, noting the hidden door behind it. A safe room, he thinks, or a hidden passageway out of here, just in case. He steps away, tail flicking lazily behind him as he trails his fingers over tapestries and cabinets and drawers, and ignores Lestra’s exasperated call: “Don’t touch that drawer! That’s got some special chemicals in it.”

He is so, so tempted to pull it open right now.

He doesn’t, and moves on instead, keeping an ear on Fjord and Lestra’s conversation while letting himself be drawn like a magpie to things that look even vaguely interesting, within reason.

“It’s really a shame about your friend, honestly,” Lestra’s saying. “He seems friendly, if a bit too drawn to interesting stuff. I’d have loved to ask him his opinion on the decor.”

 _He thinks it’s very ostentatious and would like to know where you got the curtains,_ Molly does not answer. Fuck this geas, really, making Molly pass up on golden opportunities like this. One more thing that Astrid is going to have to answer for, he supposes.

“He’d have asked you where you got half of it,” says Fjord. “He likes this kinda stuff, always has. Y’know, one time he bought a tapestry of the Platinum Dragon just ‘cause it looked nice?”

And god, did Molly have plans for that tapestry. He stops by a portrait of a drow elf druid looking up at something just out of frame while bathed in moonlight, the painting framed with glittering gold, and almost without meaning to, his hand falls to the pocket where his cards are. One of these days, he promises himself, he’ll try Jester’s way of talking to her god. With less drawings. He’s just not the artist Jester is.

“I’ve bought worse with flimsier reasons,” says Lestra, lightly. Then she sighs, and Molly glances over to see her drawing a few strands of her hair back behind her ear, showing off her own tattoos. Against her emerald-like skin, they seem almost to glitter. “But I didn’t bring you both in here to talk of tapestries, I brought you here to tell a story. Come, sit. There must be some tea in there somewhere— _hey_.”

Molly very deliberately draws his hand back from the painting. It clatters against the wall, making a hollow sound. So there’s something else behind this painting, then.

“Yeah, you’ll have to excuse my friend, he must’ve liked the look of the frame,” says Fjord, striding over to rest his hand on Molly’s elbow. “You find anything?” he murmurs in Molly’s ear.

Molly traces a _Y_ onto Fjord’s back. Then he lets him pull him towards a table with a map of Lynbroke rolled out on it, an ancient, yellowed thing with worn edges, and three chairs already ready for them.

Lestra rolls the map up, stows it into a parcel, then sets out three cups and a metal kettle, cushioned by a rather large brick. She taps the kettle with a murmur, and the metal starts to glow a dull red, steam beginning to hiss out of the spout.

“Right,” she says, “let’s take a seat—”

\--

“—and have ourselves a little chitchat, yeah?” says Ronwell, pushing the doors to the Dogs’ back room open. There’s a billiards table at the center that’s been hurriedly converted into a strategy table, and he brushes the maps and letters aside so Caleb and Yasha can set their tankards down in a relatively clear space. “Apologies ‘bout the mess earlier. Some people are just not good at honoring deals.”

He sends a poisonous look out towards the door. Caleb files it away for later: Ronwell seems a loyal one (like a dog), but near-obsessed with slights towards him and his. “ _Ja,_ I like to think we’re a little better at that,” he says, instead.

“We’ll see about that,” says Ronwell. He eyes Yasha’s cake with some trepidation—apparently Throat’s reputation is that bad, if everyone they’re running into seems to think Yasha is somehow all the more terrifying for eating and liking it. Then again, considering what Caleb’s been told about it, he wouldn’t really eat it if he had a choice in the matter. “There’s someone—well, two someones—that we need you to find for us. Their names are Carr and Kerr and they’re twins that used to work for me.”

“What kind of work was it that they used to do for you?” Yasha asks. “And what happened to them, that you need us to find them?”

“Kerr could pack a punch and Carr could talk his way into and out of any kind of trouble,” says Ronwell. “They were good people who happened to bite off bigger than they could chew, they were—”

\--

“—opportunistic assholes who wanted to climb as high as they possibly could up the ladder,” says Lestra, in her chamber. “And they knew how to do it. Carr could talk you into any deal no matter how bad and Kerr had a mean right hook, and together they bullied their way as close to the top of the heap of stinking refuse calling itself the Dogs of Hell as they could conceivably get.”

“That’s a colorful way of putting it,” says Fjord.

Molly bites back a snort of laughter. There’s no love lost between Lestra and this gang, he can see that. Honestly, he’s sort of in agreement with her here, if only because he really doesn’t trust the Dogs. Then again he’s not so sure on Lestra either, that’s a woman who’d be willing to cut and run at trouble at the first sign it’s gotten too big to handle.

Gods, they’re inviting a whole lot of trouble to come their way. Scratch that, they’re hanging a giant sign in front of their inn and handing out flyers practically enticing trouble to come their way, and all to get Molly out from under the Assembly’s control. He’s touched, a little, under all the worry and fear and the quiet voice whispering, _Are you really worth all of this? Could you live with it, if they got hurt because of you?_

He shivers, a little. Fjord rests a hand on his elbow and squeezes, once, and Molly forces himself to relax. It isn’t a question of Molly being worth it, it’s just—he’d do the same and then some for any of the Mighty Nein.

“It’s not that cold in here, is it?” Lestra asks. Molly pretends not to hear her, just cupping his hands around the cup of tea she’d poured for the both of them earlier. He glances at Fjord, watching him pick up his own cup and take a sip, then copies his movements and hopes Lestra doesn’t find it a little suspicious.

It’s surprisingly good tea. Molly finds himself savoring the taste of it, although he’s been doing that a lot lately.

“Little bit,” says Fjord. “But go on, what else?”

“All right, all right, don’t rush me,” says Lestra with a huff. “Where was I? Right, Carr and Kerr. They were lieutenants to good ol’ Ronwell, he who could never let go of even the slightest offense. Like a dog with a bone, that one, with grudges, but anyway. So one day Kerr, who’s really damn good at spotting opportunities, says to his boss—”

\--

“—said he and Carr had been approached by Rattlesnake to do a few small jobs for him,” says Ronwell. “Nothing in our territory, of course, but it wasn’t regular. I asked him why, and he said that rent was coming up and they needed to pay it. I said they could stay here, and he just shook his head, said it was fine but they needed their old man’s apartment, it was their _home_.”

“Where is this apartment now?” Caleb asks, scratching Frumpkin behind the ears, absently. Frumpkin purrs on his lap, and starts to knead into his thighs, tiny pinpricks of pain flaring as Frumpkin’s claws dig into skin.

Caleb scratches anyway.

“It’s a few streets away from the public library,” says Ronwell. Caleb stops scratching his cat behind the ears, remembering the festival arches. “In an abandoned building that used to be home to—”

\--

“—a lot of very small but very cozy shops,” says Lestra, “and Verrin and her—well, her family, by coincidence.”

Of course Verrin’s connected to this in some way, even by coincidence. The woman seems to know everyone in this town, for a drunk that just wants to be paid in booze. Makes Molly _wonder_ , really, because between the blood hunter abilities and the connection to Astrid and now this?

He takes a sip of his tea, again. Maybe he’ll ask Nott to trail her. Maybe he’ll do it himself. He’s trailed people before, at least this time it hopefully won’t end in someone dying horribly.

“Y’know, somehow I’m not all that surprised,” Fjord drawls. “Seems like she knows everybody in this town.”

“Nah, that was—a friend of hers,” says Lestra, and Molly’s willing to bet he’s got some idea who that friend might be. “Anyway, so Carr and Kerr used to live there. The rents started to rise, and so did the taxes, and everybody started moving out of the place once it became very clear that they couldn’t keep up with the rising prices for very long. All except Carr and Kerr, ‘cause their old man used to run his business there, _and_ they needed a place that wasn’t controlled by the Dogs for their freelance jobs.”

“They didn’t hang on to it very long, though, I’m guessing,” says Fjord.

“They did, actually,” says Lestra. “At least up until a couple of months ago, long after their disappearing act—the Dogs couldn’t afford to keep their place for them. See, Rattlesnake approached them to do a couple things for him, and Kerr smelled the scent of opportunity when he heard—”

\--

“—it’d earn them a very tidy sum, is what Carr told me,” says Ronwell, taking a sip of his beer, fingers drumming out an uneasy rhythm on the table. “Kerr always wanted a taste of more than there was here, but Carr was a little more cautious than his brother. Part of always talking them out of trouble, he said, meant knowing _when_ the trouble would start, and if it was worth it or not.”

“And this very tidy sum was worth it?” Caleb asks.

“Kerr seemed to think so,” says Ronwell. “Carr wasn’t quite so sure, but—well, you couldn’t turn down Rattlesnake. Man had a way of making you at least decide to give it a try, even if the trying would hurt you more than it would help.” He sighs, and scrubs his hand over his face. “So they went to do as asked. Like good little soldiers. And me? Me, I _told ‘em_ to go.”

“What did Rattlesnake ask of them, anyway?” Yasha asks, quietly. “You said they were small jobs. How small were they?”

“Just some breaking and entering,” says Ronwell. “A couple of cons, just to gather information. He wanted dirt on a couple people, that’s all.”

\--

“Rattlesnake, so far as I could tell, wanted Carr and Kerr to go digging up dirt on a select list of people,” says Lestra. “Not just any kind of dirt, mind. See, there used to be a few—ah, let’s say, less than satisfied individuals in town who, having been disappointed time and again by the Crownsguard, decided to do their job for them. Now, by the time Rattlesnake really consolidated his power, most of them had been arrested or had just disappeared into thin air, but he was paranoid enough to _still_ consider them a possible threat.”

Some part of Molly that still remembers the knives biting into his skin thinks, _Or maybe the Empire used them._ The Cerberus Assembly doesn’t seem to like wasting talent, after all, when it could break the talent to serve the Empire’s needs first. After that, who cares what happens to it? They would deserve it. Whatever happened to these people, surely they deserved it.

He shakes his head, a shiver going down his spine at the thought, so—so _opposite_ to what Molly feels, what he stands for. No, they _didn’t_ deserve it, and no one does. He can’t think of anyone he’d wish a fate like this on.

“Were they really a threat, though?” asks Fjord, oblivious. Molly curls his tail around his ankle, and Fjord blinks down and glances over at him, worried, before continuing. “And if you know—and it seems to me you know quite an awful lot ‘bout this—did they ever find anything?”

“Not a thing,” says Lestra, “and even worse—”

\--

“—Carr charmed a Crownsguard for information,” says Ronwell. “An off-duty Crownsguard in plain clothes, but a Crownsguard nonetheless, and the second the charm wore off they started tailing them to meetings with Rattlesnake.”

“I thought the Crownsguard were in his pocket,” says Yasha.

“They are,” says Ronwell, “but there’s a couple of honest, idealistic folk in there.” He pauses, then says, deadpan, “Yeah, I know, it’s a shock. They’re usually the young ones who want to change things up, and they usually either die on the job or they fall in line with their elders. But this one?” He shakes his head. “Gotta give them some respect, they knew a lead when they had one.”

That tracks. There have always been good people, working under the Assembly, working in the Empire’s good graces. Caleb’s seen them, he does not dispute their existence. What he does dispute is how long they last, and he wonders if this Ronwell has gotten the measure of this Crownsguard right. Maybe they wanted a lucky shot. Maybe they wanted blackmail.

Maybe, maybe, maybe, but that’s a story he’s seen play out over and over before. Misplaced ambition like that, it never leads anywhere good.

“And I would guess,” says Caleb, following the thread of the story to its logical conclusion, based on experience, “that the Crownsguard was spotted and taken care of, Carr and Kerr were blamed, and then they disappeared?”

“That’s a good summary, and a good way of putting it,” says Ronwell, “but there’s more to the story than that.”

\--

Molly props his chin up on his tattooed hand, fiddling with his coat sleeve. He tilts his head to the side, as if entranced by the charms dangling off his own horns, and listens to Lestra saying, “So this one guard’s a lucky one—but a stupid one too. Eventually, he told someone he shouldn’t have, who reported it to the captain, who was, surprise surprise, in Rattlesnake’s pocket already.”

“And it went to shit from there?” Fjord asks.

“Well, for _him_ , yes,” says Lestra. “Rattlesnake let him trail Carr and Kerr one more time, just to lull him into complacency, before he had his goons take all three of them. Just,” she snaps her fingers, “bam, right off the street. In the night, of course, because he had a reputation to keep.” She smiles, thin and dagger-sharp. “He was already thinking ahead to ‘better times’,” she says, finger-quoting the last two words.

What a dick, this guy. If Molly didn’t have this little Geas problem, he’d have voted they fuck with Rattlesnake for _free_ , just to teach him a lesson.

“You have any idea what happened to any of them, after that?” Fjord asks.

“The Crownsguard was found face-down in a ditch the day after,” says Lestra. “Officially, he got too drunk, passed out, and drowned in his own vomit.” She sips at her tea, and says, “Unofficially, the snake got him. Carr and Kerr just vanished into thin air, and honestly, I’m almost certain they’re dead.”

Hopefully not worse than dead. For all their flaws, there’s some things no one deserves. Molly looks down at his tea, and rubs absently at his wrists. The cuffs didn’t chafe as badly as the collar did, but they were heavy and awful.

“Almost?” says Fjord.

Lestra lets out a breath. “The thing about Carr and Kerr,” she says, “is this—”

\--

“—you have one, you have the other,” says Ronwell. “They’ve always been that way, long as I’ve known them. If Rattlesnake has any more use for them, he’s bound to have kept them both alive, and made sure to keep one as hostage so the other would keep doing what he asked.”

That is a little overly hopeful. It’s more likely the two are dead, and the only thing the Mighty Nein will find of them are their rotting corpses. But Caleb doesn’t say that out loud. Ronwell seems hopeful, but not so delusional to believe beyond a doubt that his two subordinates may still be alive.

Instead he says, “How long has it been since they disappeared?”

“Close to a year, I think,” says Ronwell.

Not a lot of hope there, then. Yasha says, “And you’re sure they’re alive?”

“I’m _hopin’_ they are,” says Ronwell, a hint of an accent creeping into his voice. “Might be they won’t be. If that’s the case, just—bring something of theirs back. You’re a graveyard kid,” he says, nodding to Yasha, and Caleb takes a sip of his ale to hide an amused smile, “you know how important it is that someone’s buried all properly.”

She’s not. The graveyard kid they did have is currently at his graveyard, having a well-deserved vacation.

So Caleb’s surprised when Yasha says, with the voice of someone who _knows_ what it feels like, not to know what happened to the body of someone she cared about, “Yes.” She looks down at her pie, then breathes out slow. “Yes. I do.”

“So where do you think Rattlesnake would keep them?” Caleb asks.

\--

“Eh, he probably dumped their bodies in a shallow ditch,” says Lestra, with a shrug. “They’ve probably rotted away by now. Hope you’ve got some kind of story for Ronwell and his ilk.”

“That’s hopeful,” says Fjord.

“That _is_ hopeful,” says Lestra, with some vehemence. “Carr and Kerr did not like me, and the feeling was very, very mutual.” She pours herself some more tea. “If I told you good folks to call off the whole deal with the Dogs, you wouldn’t, would you?”

Molly catches Fjord looking at him, and looks away and down to his cup once more, now mostly drained of tea. He swirls it around absently, and glances down at the dregs of it. Squints at the sediments that have resolved into shapes: a heart here, a crescent moon there, and—his heart skips a beat—a gravestone.

Gustav had taught him how to read tea leaves once, when he was still new, figuring out what kind of fortune-telling he wanted to do. A heart means he’s fallen for someone, which isn’t anything new, Molly’s been in love with Caleb since that moment in Zadash when he’d called him by name. A crescent moon is not—bad, per se, but placed like it is in the cup, it means difficulty ahead, dark times coming where he’s going to need as much hope as he can get. And a gravestone—

He thinks of the Death card. Technically, it’s not supposed to be a bad symbol either. It may as well be metaphorical. But god _dammit_ , it keeps following him around.

He sets the cup down, his stomach twisting with unease.

“Something up?” Lestra asks, somewhere distant. “Your friend doesn’t seem too happy.”

“Yeah, uh, let me just take him outside,” says Fjord, hurriedly, “don’t think he’s a big fan of enclosed spaces. Hey, Molly, come on—I’ll come back, just gotta calm him down first.” And his hand lands on Molly’s shoulder, and Molly takes it, leaning into Fjord’s side as he stands up and walks out of the chamber.

He doesn’t look back.

\--

“By warehouse,” says Caleb, after Ronwell’s finished talking, “do you mean—the very warehouse that you helped to take from Lestra?”

“Hey, now, we didn’t do anything to the warehouse, just let Rattlesnake have a few of our best folk for that job, like a freelance thing,” says Ronwell, eyes darting away from Yasha as he speaks. Caleb decides not to call him out on the obvious lie, there’s clearly some bad blood between the Dogs and Lestra that he is not interested in wading into. Well. Wading into any further than they’re all already in. “He mostly just relied on the Crownsguard for it. But I wouldn’t put it past him to put them there.”

If, of course, they’re still alive.

Frumpkin has jumped off onto the table now, and Caleb reaches out to scratch him behind his ears. “So you want us,” he says, as Frumpkin purrs contentedly under his hand, “to break into the warehouse that we are already planning to break into, and either rescue your friends or retrieve something of theirs, if they are not alive to be rescued, on top of what Lestra already asked us to do.”

“Well, you were already planning to do it anyway for her,” says Ronwell. “You don’t even have to go out of the way all that much, Rattlesnake keeps both the goods and the prisoners he doesn’t want anyone to know about underground.”

Caleb glances sideways at Yasha, and notes the flash of—of _something_ across her face. Something like a dawning realization, he figures.

_If he knows that, what else does he know?_

“How do you know that?” Yasha asks.

“He took me and Ghavnos there, how do you think?” Ronwell drums his fingers on the handle of his tankard, before he grasps it and tips his head back, pouring the beer down his throat with practiced ease. He only just coughs a little as he slams it back down onto the table, hard enough to startle even Frumpkin. “After he got the warehouse, before Carr and Kerr disappeared. He said he had plans for it. He showed us cells he was building. Said he had ideas for useful prisoners.”

The cold weight of dread drops into Caleb’s gut. He glances over to Yasha, whose jaw has set, whose lips are pressed into a thin, bloodless line. He thinks of Molly, looking up at the ceiling, telling him about the small, stone cell he used to be shoved into, the same sort of cell Caleb himself used to sleep in sometimes as punishment for insubordination. He thinks of the prisoners that he broke, the prisoners that he executed in their cells. He thinks of finding Yasha, Jester and Fjord, trapped in the Sour Nest’s dungeons.

 _Useful prisoners._ At best, Ronwell might mean hostages. At worst—Caleb swallows the bile that rises in his throat, the memory of the corpse soldiers, and of the cages that the Iron Shepherds kept people in, bubbling back up to the forefront of his mind. He buries a hand in Frumpkin’s fur, focusing on the softness of it under his palm, the warmth of the fey cat against his skin.

“What sorts of ideas?” he asks, hating himself for the question. He knows, already, what sorts of ideas such a man might have, for people that have offended his power.

Sure enough, Ronwell crooks his fingers twice as he says, “ _Community service_ , or somesuch. I didn’t ask what he meant. Worst way to get Rattlesnake’s attention was to start asking questions he didn’t like.”

No. No, no one would want to ask questions, would they, not if they were terrified. Caleb swallows the lump around his throat, trying not to think of his teacher: _the Empire is not to be questioned, the Empire’s word is law, and in this room, I speak for the Empire_. Replace _Empire_ with _Lynbroke_ , and he fancies he’s not far off from summing up Rattlesnake’s rhetoric, at least. Maybe not the man himself. Crime lords are generally very self-serving at heart.

“Slavery,” says Yasha, the word cracking like a whip through the air. “He meant _slavery_.”

“That’s a harsh word—”

“That’s _exactly_ what it is,” says Yasha. “You knew it, I think. But you were scared, and it was easier to—to pretend you believed him, when he said it was community service.” Her voice is even and calm, but the handle of her tankard is starting to crack under her fingers.

Caleb rests a hand on hers, and says, softly, “Your hand.”

Yasha blinks, and lets go.

The tankard’s never been made of the sturdiest wood, Caleb knows that. One good, hard slam in a bar fight, and you run the risk of breaking it and getting splinters in your hand. Now, however, the handle barely even deserves the name anymore, reduced as it is to splinters.

Yasha looks down at her hand, with the handle’s remnants sticking out of it. Then she starts to pick out the splinters, with great care. As she does so, she says, “We’ll find your friends. We said we would when we got here. We’ll bring them back to you, one way or the other—but once that’s done?” The splinters fall to the table, stained with blood. “You don’t get to pretend anymore. If anyone else shows you cells and talks about community service, and you _know_ that’s not what they mean, you _walk away_. You walk away.”

Ronwell’s chair scoots back, and he stares, with wide, horrified eyes, at the splinters dropping from Yasha’s hand.

“Or we will find out,” she says, her voice still as calm and even as ever, and Caleb could swear that lightning starts to crackle over her hair.

Ronwell gulps.

Caleb snaps his fingers under the table. Two globules of light float up and sink into Yasha’s hair, giving the dark mass a glow that seems almost terrifying in the dark chamber.

Ronwell goes even paler.

\--

“You all right, Molly?” Fjord asks, as Molly slumps against the brick wall underneath Lestra’s sign.

“I’m not making a very good fortune-teller,” Molly says, reflectively, fiddling with the sleeves of his coat, “if all I’m pulling’s the Death card.”

“You didn’t pull any cards in there,” says Fjord, sliding down next to him. Good old Fjord, weirdly straightforward for a man who’s got more secrets and masks than even Molly can keep track of. And Molly’s from a circus. He’s picked up plenty of masks. “What happened?”

“Nod for yes, shake for no, I want to keep talking,” says Molly. After a nod, he says, “Have you ever heard of tasseography?”

Fjord frowns, then shakes his head.

“Yeah, I figured,” says Molly. “It was something Desmond taught me, when I was still figuring out what I wanted to do in the circus. It’s—you pour a cup of tea, but leave the leaves in, and then when you’ve drained the cup you look at what’s left and figure out what kind of shapes they are, and then from those shapes you figure out what signs you’ve got to watch out for.” He clasps his hands together, tail wrapping protectively around his thigh. “There was a gravestone,” he says. “You can talk now if you want.”

“Well, fuck,” says Fjord, stunned. “You don’t think you were misinterpreting something? Seems like this tasseography thing’s got a lot of room for fucking up, right?”

“It does, and I never did get the hang of it,” says Molly. “But I know what a gravestone looks like when I see it.” He’s spent enough time in cemeteries, both Before and After, to at least have an idea of the general shape, and that had—that had been a gravestone shape. He knows that deep in his bones.

He shivers. “I can’t go back inside,” he says. “You can if you want, I’m not going anywhere anyway, but I can’t go inside and pretend after—after _that_.” He’s spun glass, right now, one wrong move and he might just shatter. And he can’t afford that. Not right now. He can do it later, when there aren’t any eyes on him, when the part of him that’s coldly calculating shit like the easiest way to take someone down isn’t noting the best places for someone with a crossbow and a grudge to sit in and wait.

He’s really got to stop being so paranoid. Being somewhat cynical and prepared for people being kinda shitty is one thing, that’s just common sense. _Paranoia_ is new and terrifying.

“You sure you’re good out here?” Fjord asks.

“I’m sure,” says Molly. “I’ve been planning on writing something anyway, a little bit of time alone might help.” No, it wouldn’t, he knows that for a lie as soon as it’s off his tongue, but they came here for a reason and Molly won’t jeopardize that. A couple of minutes out in the sunshine’s different, anyway, from days alone in the dark. “Try not to let her get to you too much,” he says, lightly. “She seems to like you.”

“Too much,” Fjord grumbles, rubbing a hand over his eye. “Anything happens, screw the pretense, come in and grab me.”

Molly nods, then pats Fjord on the shoulder, pushing him away and back inside the store. He keeps up a grin on his face till Fjord disappears back behind the curtain, then lets it fall, slumping against the wall once more.

Caleb must be doing better than he is, right now. At least Molly hopes so. Caleb’s had more time to acclimate to this, more experience and—well, he won’t go so far as to say “better coping mechanisms”. Caleb’s coping mechanisms include hating himself for having been manipulated and lied to, even _Molly’s_ coping better than that.

Probably.

His hand drifts up to his neck, fingers closing around thin air. He breathes a sigh of relief, when he doesn’t find cold unyielding metal there, and something eases a little in his gut.

He lets his head fall back against the brick wall, and pulls his coat tighter around himself. He misses Fjord already. He misses Yasha’s steady bulk, the way her arm wraps around him to tug him closer. He misses Jester’s surprisingly strong hug and her chatter, chasing away the silence choking his throat sometimes. He misses Nott’s fussing, even, and Beau’s sardonic sniping at him, misses being able to answer her sarcasm with his own.

And he misses Caleb. He saw him this morning, but he misses him already, which is pretty pathetic when he thinks about it, but he’s got a good excuse if anyone ever asks. Which no one ever will, because Molly won’t let them see. They’re already neck-deep in this town’s bullshit because they want to save him.

 _If there is anything worth saving left,_ a part of him whispers, and he shivers, claps his hands over his ears. _If you’re even the same person who died on Glory Run Road._

He tugs his notebook out before that thought can go anywhere, looks up at the sky. It’s a bright day, the sun shining against a blue sky, almost picturesque. He wishes it were night, wishes he could see the moons and bask in their light.

He’ll just have to settle for sunlight, he supposes. Then he opens his notebook and starts to write: _Moonweaver, its Molly._


	39. if someone asks, this is where i'll be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Talking Heads' "This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)".
> 
> sorry for putting up just one section early this week, folks. I've been working on a D&D session and we ended up agreeing on Wednesday my time, bc my time zone is terrible. we'll be back to your regular two-section chapters next week!

“Jester, where are you? Jester, where are you?! _Jester, where are you?!_ ”

No answer comes, not even as Nott sprints down the street, repeating the question over and over into the copper wire. That’s— _not good_ , not at all, and a hundred worst-case scenarios, each one more terrible and gruesome and even implausible than the last one, whirl through her mind.

She dives under a dancer’s legs, and hisses again, “Jester, come on, where are you, _please_ reply to this message!”

Nothing. Nott swears under her breath, catching sight of polished helmets and breastplates pushing their way down the street. She has no illusions over what they’ll do to her if they see her—after all, to them, she’s just a filthy little goblin girl. So she ducks into an alley, and presses herself flat against the grimy brick wall, holding her breath and counting down until they’re gone.

She hears something— _rip_ , just above her.

She looks up.

Jester tumbles out of a pink rip with a scream in the space just above her, and Nott dives and rolls out of the instinctively. Jester tucks into herself and rolls, skidding to a stop and breathing hard, her fingers digging into the dirt, one leg splayed out. Nott stares at her for a moment, briefly stunned.

Then Jester whispers, “That was _so cool!_ ”

“It was!” says Nott, rushing forward to check over her friend and detective partner. She looks—well, fine, mostly, a few cuts here and there and, wait, glass? “Stay still! I’m going to pick these out. What did you even do?”

“I jumped through a window,” says Jester, matter-of-factly, only hissing somewhat as Nott gingerly picks shards of glass out of her skin. They’re not deep enough to really do a whole lot of damage, Nott’s glad for that much, but it’s still worrying. “The bartender got suspicious, so I cast Duplicity and jumped through a window and then ran like hell. And I had to cast Dimension Door because guards were looking after me, and now I’m here!”

“Guards are still looking after you, actually,” says Nott. “So we can’t stay here for very long. I left Twiggy right in front of the Slayer’s Cake, but she’s probably gone to go find Beau since Beau got in trouble—”

“I know, I know, you told me!” says Jester, standing up after Nott’s plucked out the last shard. “So come on, let’s go find them! They probably went back—”

“There you are! Stay right there, little lady!” comes the shout, and both Nott and Jester lock eyes with each other for a brief moment before whipping around to see a Crownsguard pointing down the alleyway, with a breastplate polished to a shine and a fancier helmet than the ones she’s seen before. Oh, shit. This guy’s a lieutenant, isn’t he. “And—the _fuck_ , is that a goblin?”

Nott digs out a stale pastry from her pouch, points at the Crownsguard as she crumbles the tart in her hand, and desperately says, “I—I thought about going on an all-almond diet, but that’s just _nuts_!”

“What,” says the Crownsguard, narrowing his eyes at her. For a second, Nott’s heart claws into her throat, and she reaches out for Jester’s hand, ready to yank her down the alleyway if she needs to. Then his mouth begins to twitch upward, and his shoulders begin to shake. “W-What,” he manages to say, before he bursts into a fit of laughter, doubling over as he giggles at the joke.

They run, then and there, Nott leaping over the laughing guard and Jester following right after her. There’s a small gaggle of Crownsguard just blocks away from them, and Nott used up the last tart she had on that joke, so she and Jester push right into the crowd. Nott ducks under a fire-dancer’s legs, just about managing to avoid getting singed by spinning fire directly over her head.

“What even _happened_?” she says to Jester, raising her voice somewhat over the din of the crowd, the futile shouts from the Crownsguard for the people to let them through.

“I just got her back to her inn, that’s all!” Jester all but shouts back. “She just passed out onto the dirt after she called me by the wrong name!”

“Which name did she use?!”

“Verrin’s!”

“Well, shit!” Nott dives underneath a wagon, tucking and rolling as she comes out the other side, narrowly missing a freaked-out vendor’s leg kicking out at her. Then she feels Jester’s arms pulling her up off the ground. “Wait, wait, Jester, Jessie, what are you—”

“Just hold on to me, okay,” says Jester, before starting up a chant and tracing shapes in the air. She shuts her eyes, then flings her hand upward, and the world blurs away around them, the people and buildings and even the ground underneath them blinking away. Suddenly, they’re no longer in the midst of a busy street, but an empty, foggy version of the street they had been on, the world a colorless blur, with only indistinct figures shifting around them.

Nott’s jaw drops. “Oh god,” she whispers, “oh god oh god oh god _oh god_ —”

“Just hold on to me, okay, Nott,” says Jester, gripping on tightly to her as she marches forward, her tail swaying behind her. Nott doesn’t answer, mostly because she’s too busy fumbling for her flask, trying not to have a panic attack or worse, _let go_. Her claws are practically tearing through Jester’s dress. “We’ll be back out in, um, twelve seconds.”

“ _Twelve seconds_?” Nott asks, her voice pitching high.

“Just enough time for the Crownsguard to start freaking out over where we’ve gone,” says Jester, “but you have to hold on to me, okay? No drinking until we’re out of here.” She whistles, low. “I’ve never ever brought somebody else with me when I cast this spell before,” she says.

Nott whimpers, and clings on as tight as she possibly can. “This is what you see when you cast this spell?” she asks. “Nothing? Just a great big stinking pile of _absolutely nothing_? Oh, _god_. What if there’s monsters here?” Something drifts past her ear, and Nott is just—no, she does not even want to know what that thing _was_. She ducks her face into Jester’s hair, tries not to look at the ghostly apparitions around them.

“There’s no monsters here, Nott, don’t worry,” says Jester. “This is the Ethereal Plane. The Traveler told me about this place. It’s super nice as long as you don’t, like, disturb the ghosts or anything.”

Ghosts? “There are _ghosts_?” Nott yelps. “Why are we in a plane with _ghosts_?! This is worse than Crownsguard! This is Dashilla but fifty times worse!”

“No, it’s not,” says Jester.

“ _How are you so calm?!_ ”

Jester holds up three fingers, and ticks them off: “Three, two, one—”

And the world snaps back into focus, color and sound exploding back into their surroundings like a beautifully-executed Fluffernutter. Now, however, they’re about three blocks down from where they were, and the Crownsguard have disappeared. Nott cranes her neck, strains her ears, but there’s no shrieks of _after them!_ that echo down the street.

Jester turns a corner, and the two of them rush down the street, Nott clinging on to Jester and trying to keep the contents of her stomach from going up her throat. “One two _three_ —”

Again, the world blurs, the people disappearing as the color drains out and the fog seeps out of the buildings, ghosts flickering into existence around them. Nott does not throw up her breakfast, but it’s a very near thing, and she swears, she _swears_ she saw a ghostly fish swimming past her head. What the _fuck_ , honestly.

“How long until the spell goes away?” she hisses, staring at the ghosts that seem to be—oh god. Are the ghosts following them? They _are_ , aren’t they? Oh god she needs a drink.

“Not very long at all,” says Jester, casually unconcerned.

“How are you not freaking out?!” Nott demands.

“I’ve done this loads of times before, Nott,” Jester says. “I just—haven’t brought anyone else with me before. So I don’t know if it’s safe for you to let go, so just don’t let go, okay?”

Nott chews on her lower lip, then sighs, and scrambles up so she can ride on top of Jester’s shoulders, gripping on tight to her horns. Beyond a quiet _hey, careful_ , Jester doesn’t put up a word of protest. “I won’t,” Nott promises. “But when are you going to drop the spell?”

“When we get back to our plane, of course,” says Jester. “And that’s in three, two, one—”

Again, an explosion of color. _Again_ , a burst of sound. This time, Jester takes Nott off her back and lets her spew all over the gutter next to the alleyway they’ve found themselves in this time. It’s—well, hell if Nott knows where they are right now, but she can’t hear or see the Crownsguard, so it must be a better place than before.

She wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots a familiar squirrel, with a bow wrapped around its tail. She straightens up her posture and says, “Trixie! Hey, Trixie! Hey, you little rodent! Get over here!”

“Trixie?” says Jester, squinting. Then her eyes grow wide, and she squeals happily. “Trixie!” she shrieks, crouching down and holding her hand out. “Oh my gosh! _Hi there_! Here, come here, come here you squeaky adorable little thing!”

Trixie scampers closer, and sniffs at Jester’s hand. Then she scurries over towards Nott, and Nott’s hand settles on the hilt of her shortsword for a moment before she forces herself to relax. This is Trixie. This is _Twiggy’s_ Trixie, and she’s all right.

Trixie sniffs at her ankle, then scampers down the alleyway. She stops at the mouth of it, and looks back, chittering.

“I think she wants us to follow her,” Jester says.

Nott blinks at her, then turns to look at the squirrel. She takes her hand off her shortsword’s hilt. “All right,” she says, squinting suspiciously (and somewhat hungrily, because that _is_ a fat-looking rodent) at Trixie. “Lead on, then,” she adds, more than slightly aware of the fact that she’s saying this to _a squirrel_. Probably a smarter one than your average squirrel, fine, but still.

Trixie does not squint suspiciously at her, but Nott gets the feeling that she would if she could, judging by the way the squirrel tilts her head at her. Then she whips around and scampers off, and Nott and Jester scamper after her.


	40. none but the lonely heart can know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Frank Sinatra's "None But The Lonely Heart".

“I mean,” says Beau, coming out of the Slayer’s Cake with Twiggy in one hand and a bag full of pastries for Jester in the other, “honestly, it was titled _Evening Tryst_ , what else was I supposed to think it was? I thought, _Jester’s gonna love this,_ and bought it for her straightaway. I didn’t realize the tryst only happened once and like, midway through the book!”

“It is a pretty weird title to have for a book,” Twiggy says, speaking through a mouth full of crumbs, “if you’re not gonna have lots of trysts.”

“Exactly,” says Beau, waving what she’s been told is a cruller around. “If you’re gonna title your book that way, you better damn well live up to it. At least start on the first chapter, really hook your audience into your story.” She bites down on it, savoring the sweet, creamy filling, and says, “Like this one book we got in Nicodranas. All about two sailors on opposite sides just getting it on, all over the place. Super hot.”

“Cool!” says Twiggy. “Do you still have it?”

“Nah, it’s in Jester’s bag,” says Beau, her mouth full. She swallows, wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand, and continues, “Had way more sex than _Evening Tryst_ , by the way—that, Twiggy, is playing to your audience’s desires.” She sidesteps a fire-dancer making her way down the street, barring Twiggy from coming closer and probably getting herself singed. “So what have you been up to lately?”

“Eh, you know, stuff and things,” says Twiggy, vaguely waving her hand. “Going out, seeing the world. Oh, I stowed away on an airship and went to Vasselheim! It was pretty fun, Trixie even made friends with another squirrel there. Between you and me, I think she might have a _crush_.”

“And then you came back to Wildemount?” says Beau, raising an eyebrow. Vasselheim sounds like a paradise, compared to the Dwendalian Empire’s strict ban on gods that aren’t entirely approved of. “What’s it got that Vasselheim doesn’t?”

“Nicodranas’ cinnamon-flavored bear claws,” says Twiggy, promptly. “They’re _really_ good. Then after that I just went wherever I felt like.” She pauses, then adds, “Not Port Damali. Mean old Sir Cadigan’s still there. But I went other places! Loads of them. Like Hupperdook.”

“Hupperdook’s a really good time, yeah,” says Beau, a corner of her mouth twitching upwards. Despite everything that had happened afterwards, she still treasures those memories: the fireworks bursting against the night sky, the laughter and music and dancing, the drinking. It had been fun. “How’d you find it?”

“Fun!” Twiggy cheers. “Exhausting, but really fun. I bought a new dress and loads of silk flowers.” She pulls one out now from her bag, tugs on Beau’s sleeve. “Get down here,” she says.

Beau complies, and Twiggy gently sticks the blue silk flower into her topknot. “There you go,” says Twiggy. “I saw it and I thought, _I know who wears lots of blue and might like this_.”

“...thanks,” says Beau, trying not to choke up. She’s really got to get used to this—to people thinking of her when they see things, to people who _get_ her things just because they thought she’d like them. Months with the Mighty Nein have made her better as a person, certainly, but this is a _lot_. Twiggy got her a silk flower, just because.

 _How do you know it’s just because?_ a cynical little part of Beau asks. But that part keeps getting disproven by her friends, her _family_ , so at least for now she lets Twiggy and her flower have the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, Twiggy doesn’t seem to care that much about, like, favors and magic items and shit. She got a fucking dragon’s tooth necklace out of that Happy Fun Ball of Tricks and Near-Death and Fucking Goddamn Dragons, she’s all set.

“You’re welcome!” Twiggy chirps.

“So how’d you go from Hupperdook to Lynbroke?”

Twiggy rocks back and forth on her heels, chewing on her bottom lip. “Just bounced around the place, really,” she says. “And then I ran into this mean warlock in Summervale, and he was doing the kind of things Sir Cadigan did to me to this poor kenku girl. So I freed her, and we kicked his ass, and she went on her way and I went mine. But I got this out of it.” She pulls her pouch to the front, and fishes out a necklace: a cord of worn leather, and a star-shaped pendant of sapphire with a soft blue glow that pulses like a heartbeat. “This is the necklace I was talking about, earlier,” says Twiggy, “the one with the magic shield that works three times a day.”

Damn. Could be useful, especially for their casters. Caleb’s shit at remembering to cast Mage Armor and Shield (probably on purpose, Beau would not be surprised if it were, Caleb _marinates_ in self-loathing), Jester gets knocked out too often for Beau’s tastes, and Caduceus’ shield took the brunt of a Disintegrate spell in a nasty fight with a lich a month ago. Beau makes a mental note to ask Caduceus when they get to Shady Creek Run again and stop by his family’s temple.

“You should put that back in your bag,” Beau says. “Don’t know who might be watching.”

“Okay,” says Twiggy, doing as asked. She just drops the necklace right back into her pouch, which maybe explains why she had so much trouble back on the ship finding the things she needed. “I don’t really need it. It’s just really pretty.”

Beau unwittingly imagines Yasha walking around with that exact necklace around her neck. She wouldn’t need it. She gets up close and personal with that sword of hers, anyone who dares to fight her is so much chopped sausage in under a minute. But it’d complement her eyes so _well_.

“Miss Beau?”

Beau shakes herself out of her thoughts, and says, “Wha—yeah?” She narrows her eyes at Twiggy’s hand, waving in front of her face. Somehow the little gnome’s clambered up onto her chest the same way Nott would, which is a feat considering how heavy Twiggy is compared to Nott.

“You looked kinda out of it for a moment there,” says Twiggy, dropping her hand. A second later she drops to the ground too, landing with easy grace. “You okay?”

It _would_ look good on Yasha. It would be a pop of color on pale skin, blue skies beyond the rolling stormclouds, the flashes of lightning. And she would smile, say in her soft, light voice—

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Beau manages, snapping herself out of it. Yasha doesn’t need the necklace, it’d serve Caleb better, probably. He’s squishy as fuck. But it wouldn’t look as good on him, although she half-thinks Molly might beg to differ, and she’s willing to throw down with Molly again over that. “Yeah. Hey, where’s your squirrel?”

“Trixie’ll come find us,” says Twiggy, with a shrug.

Beau decides not to disparage Trixie’s abilities in front of Twiggy. Instead she says, “How do you know? Like, if it’s Trixie or some other squirrel?”

“I talk to them,” says Twiggy. “I ask for their name. If it’s Trixie, she’ll say her name. If it’s not, they’ll say their name. It’s not very complicated.”

“Yeah, but—can you understand them?” Beau asks.

“Of course,” says Twiggy, looking up at her with a raised eyebrow, baffled. “I mean, I’ve always been able to, for as long as I can remember. I used to talk to rats for company, back when I was in that cell.”

She says it so fucking casually, like that’s a regular thing to do. The bile rises in the back of Beau’s throat. “Oh,” Beau says, her voice a little weak. Damn, and she’d thought her life was shit—that’s two people she knows now who’ve been stuck in a box and come out of it a little more fucked up.

“But Trixie’s better company than a lot of the rats,” Twiggy goes on. “She’s way nicer and way funnier. She told me she used to be a comedian back in her tree! And then I met her, and she came with me, and we’ve been best friends ever since.”

“That’s interesting,” says Beau. “I mean, it’s not a thing that happens everyday, becoming friends with a squirrel.”

“It’s not?”

“Nah.” Beau kicks a rock along the sidewalk. “Most people just shoo them off. Some eat them when they get hungry.” Like Nott, although Nott’s gotten pretty good at not eating the pets they tend to pick up sometimes. Although the pets don’t tend to stay long with them, anyway, Nugget and Professor Thaddeus have gone who knows where while Sprinkle’s living it up in Nicodranas with Jester’s mom.

Twiggy’s jaw drops, her mouth forming a perfect O of horror. “But _why_ ,” she says.

“Sometimes they get real hungry,” says Beau. She idly scans the area, looking for a flash of green or blue skin, or even just grey fur. She doesn’t spot grey fur, but she sees a flash of green, a hint of blue, barreling straight towards her.

She narrowly avoids being tackled onto the hard ground, side-stepping Nott and watching her tuck and roll, skidding across the ground with an indignant huff. Twiggy, however, does not, and falls to the force of Jester’s hugs with a delighted squeal of, “You’re back! Oh, hey, Trixie, you came back too!”

Sure enough, Trixie the squirrel scampers out from under a vendor’s cart, and curls up in Twiggy’s arms as Twiggy sits up to snuggle her and tuck her back into a pocket.

“We got hard evidence!” says Nott.

“And I got a testimony right from the source herself!” Jester crows. “ _Hard evidence and witness testimony!_ ”

“We are the best detectives!” Nott proclaims, drawing weird looks from people passing by. Then she pauses, and narrows her eyes up at Beau. “You all right? You sounded like you were in trouble when I messaged you.”

“Yeah, Verrin kinda overheard us talking ‘bout you-know-who,” says Beau. “But it’s fine, me and Twiggy talked her down. Although now she thinks we were talking about Avantika.”

Jester’s face scrunches up in disgust. “Why would we talk about her?” she asks.

“Because all she heard was us talking about Tiffany,” says Beau, eyeing the way Jester seems to quietly fume a little, “so I used our last Tiffany to throw her off.”

“We really have to come up with a better codename for Verrin’s old friend than Tiffany,” says Nott, with a huff. “Did you find anything out from her?”

“Other than the fact that she cares a lot more about shit than I think she’s even willing to admit to herself, nah,” says Beau. “You, Jes, Nott? You find anything out?”

“We found these,” says Nott, fishing out two potions from her cloak. “And letters! Incriminating letters.”

“She’s like, really deep into the Academy and the Assembly,” says Jester, hooking her arm into Beau’s as the four of them start walking. Beau feels a familiar weight tugging as it clambers up the back of her robes, and a moment later Nott’s settled onto her shoulders. When she cranes her neck up to look, Nott looks down at her, half her face covered by that creepy porcelain mask of hers. Never fails to make Beau shudder, every time.

“She was all, _You should go to the Academy! The Assembly’s always picking the best mages there,_ ” Jester goes on, “ _and there’s a part of the Academy that’s all about religion now, you’re going to love it there so much, you just have to sign over, like, your whole soul to the Empire._ ”

“She didn’t actually say it like that, right?” says Twiggy, skipping along beside them. No, really. She’s _skipping_ like a little kid. It’s kinda weird.

“Nah, it’s just a summary,” says Jester. “But she’s pretty firm on it. At least she seemed to be firm on it. And then she went back up to her room and I had to distract her so Nott and Twiggy could get away—”

“We also got a robe from her closet,” says Nott. “And I didn’t take it, but she had this holy symbol in her drawer that looked new, but there was this crack in it like she broke it somehow.”

“—and then for some reason when she saw me she just _fainted_ ,” says Jester, and demonstrates by swooning right into Beau’s arms like one of those fussy maidens from one of her less enjoyable stories. Beau chuckles, and pushes her upright. “And she said Verrin’s name a few times. Or, well, she said _Ver_.”

“Yeah, they were really close,” says Nott. “They wrote letters to each other. Or at least Verrin wrote letters to her—they’re the only ones that weren’t encoded.”

Beau squints at Jester, tilts her head to the side, trying to overlay Verrin’s face over hers. It’s—yeah, no, not happening, she doesn’t know what would make someone mistake Jester for someone like Verrin. For one thing, Jester’s shorter, and for another her smiles come easier and far more frequently. She has pain, but she doesn’t wear it on her sleeve the way Verrin does.

Then again, Verrin didn’t always have this pain, did she. Nobody’s born with a bottle in their hand and a surly snarl already on their lips. Nobody’s born shattered already.

“Did you get these letters?” Beau asks, at last.

“Of course!” says Twiggy.

“Not all of them,” says Nott. “Just the ones that were coded. Caleb’ll like deciphering them, he likes a challenge.”

“Also,” says Jester, “I am definitely banned from that inn now. They called the Crownsguard on me.”

“You know,” says Beau, contemplatively, “I’m not even surprised.”

\--

“I think we did okay,” says Yasha, as she and Caleb walk down the street, away from the Dogs’ headquarters. In one hand she holds a fresh new slice of fruit-and-meatcake, and the other one is busy scratching Frumpkin behind his ears. “No one tried to kill us, and we got everything we needed. We did okay.”

Frumpkin makes that rumbling noise in his chest again. It makes Yasha feel so much better, oddly enough.

“I did not realize a meat pie would scare these people that much,” says Caleb. “You would think they would have seen far worse than some questionable meat in a pie.”

“You took a step back,” says Yasha, before she takes a bite out of her slice.

“I am a coward,” says Caleb, with a shrug. “I stay twenty feet away from fights in case they get ugly.”

“That’s not cowardice, that’s just being sensible,” says Yasha. “You’re very squishy. I could knock you over with just a small shove. _Nott_ could knock you over with a small shove.” Nott’s probably the stronger one between her and Caleb, actually, now that Yasha thinks about it. She’s seen Nott tackle a man hard enough to knock him over, although she had needed a running start.

“ _Ja_ , on a good day she could,” says Caleb, chewing on his bottom lip like he’s seriously mulling the scenario over, calculating how much strength Nott would need to knock him over. Honestly, Yasha thinks she wouldn’t need a whole lot. Caleb is scrawny. “And she has been having more good days than she did before we met you all.”

“She might like a slice of fruit-and-meatcake,” says Yasha.

“She would,” says Caleb, but he eyes Yasha’s cake with some trepidation. Yasha laughs softly, content in the daylight. If this were Molly, she’d have companionably bumped his shoulder, but Caleb’s so standoffish sometimes that Yasha doesn’t always know what his boundaries are. Better not to overstep. “Can I ask you something?”

Yasha shrugs. “Go ahead,” she says.

“Where did you learn to shave someone with a sword?” Caleb asks.

“The circus,” says Yasha. “I started out with a dagger, but I lost that in a fight with bandits. I had to make do whenever someone would come to me to ask to get something shaved.”

“Did they not have someone else who could shave?” Caleb asks. “I know some of them couldn’t grow body hair, but I would’ve thought—well, Bo or Desmond, perhaps.”

“Bo taught me, actually,” says Yasha. “I didn’t really want to nick anybody and he had this party trick of his, where he’d use this really big sword to shave someone.” She mimes very carefully scraping a large blade along someone’s chin. “He said it was easier if they were lying down, usually, and never to do it while in a moving cart.”

“Did you ever try to shave someone in a moving cart?” Caleb asks, looking morbidly curious.

“Only once,” says Yasha. “Toya was sleeping and Desmond wanted a shave, so I figured as long as I used something small instead of my sword it would probably work.” She pauses, then adds, “I think he still has the scar on his ear where I almost stabbed him. I didn’t try to shave anyone in a moving cart again after that.”

Caleb laughs. It sounds surprised, like he’s caught off-guard by his own laughter. Yasha bumps his shoulder, light and tentative, and he bumps right back. Frumpkin leaps from her shoulders onto Caleb’s, and licks his cheek. “We are not in a moving cart, and I—I do miss shaving regularly,” he says. “And you did a good job the last time, so I was wondering if you might be all right with doing it again?”

“Yes,” says Yasha, taking a bite. “Just—don’t be so tense, okay? I know what I’m doing, so you can relax.”

“I was only so tense the first time because I wasn’t sure,” says Caleb. “But now that I know, _ja_ , I can try.”

Yasha finishes off her fruit-and-meatcake with some regret, for not having bought more. Maybe tomorrow she’ll ask for the whole thing instead of just a slice, and she and Nott could make a contest out of it, see who can eat the most of it. Beau—probably would join in, so long as she’s got an idea of where the meat’s from. She licks the crumbs off her fingers, then wipes her hand off on her shawl.

They stop near a makeshift theatre, about thirty minutes or so later. Yasha knows because she asked Caleb, and between the two of them he’s got a better sense of time. On the stage, a dwarven woman with a bad wig swings a cutlass around, making a speech about truth and justice as she jabs at a hydra made of painted cloth and colored paper. She flings out a hand, and confetti flutters to the ground and onto the cloth hydra’s face.

It’s pretty entertaining, and Yasha finds herself stepping a bit closer just to watch. The woman’s speech is a touch antiquated, but she delivers it with such a passion that Yasha’s caught up in it anyway.

Caleb comes up next to her, tucking his hands in his pockets. “On the ninth day of fighting,” he murmurs, “Lady Margaret felled the beast that had menaced her beloved town, and came home a hero to all.”

“Where did you learn that story?” Yasha asks.

“My mother,” says Caleb, and his smile is not quite a smile and more a ghost of one. The story he told them rings once more in the back of Yasha’s head, and she wonders just how many ghosts are trailing behind at Caleb’s heels. Two, or three, or four, his parents and the children his friends were? “She and my father, they believed in the Empire. They truly did. They told me stories of its heroes when I was younger, and Lady Margaret of Lynbroke was one of them.” Then he lets out a soft, tired sigh. “It was only when I got to the Academy that I found out how it ended.”

“How?”

“She loved someone,” says Caleb. “Two people, actually, but their names are lost to time. One was turned against her, and the other went to fight him. She lost them both in the battle, and vanished afterwards. Wulf thought she had killed herself, unable to cope with her loss. And—” he hesitates, and looks at Yasha.

“She was important to you,” says Yasha, at last. “You can say her name. I promise I will not break something.”

“She was,” says Caleb, his tone placing a firm emphasis on the past tense. “And Astrid, she was something of a dreamer when I knew her, she always dreamed of better and brighter things, compared to Wulf. She thought Lady Margaret had simply—retired, disappearing from history in her grief and taking up a quiet life, alone.”

Wouldn’t that have been nice—her and Zuala, living away from the tribe, free to love and free to just exist. When she pictures it, though, she sees another woman in the same house as well, clothes a cobalt blue and eyes the color of clear skies, sitting beside Zuala, the two of them enjoying a mug of hot tea each.

Yasha breathes out slowly. “What do you think happened?” she asks.

Caleb rubs at his elbow, and says, “I didn’t think it happened that way.” He looks down at his boots, scuffs the toe against the cobblestoned road. One stone comes loose with just enough pressure. “Either way. What we knew of Lady Margaret sounded so—so far-fetched, even for that time, that I had to conclude some of the tales were legends that exaggerated her glory, and her personal tragedies as well. It may well be that her lovers died in separate battles, or even did not die at all, if ever they existed—bards like to make up things wholesale, and the two lovers’ names being lost to time is awfully convenient, especially when we still have their wizard’s name and hometown.”

“Not impossible, though,” says Yasha, thinking of Zuala. Who will remember her, but Yasha alone?

“ _Ja_ , that is true.” Caleb smiles wanly, without real mirth to it, and adds, “He tolerated it far more than he did some of the other stories we grew up with, perhaps because it was giving glory to the Empire, but our teacher still dismissed Lady Margaret’s deeds as mere folklore. He didn’t want us to listen to the cattle telling tales.”

A cold stone of dread drops into Yasha’s stomach. She shivers, pulling her shawl tighter around herself, and tries not to think of Molly, bright-eyed and wildly grinning, dragged into the darkness by a gnarled hand. What had Caleb said, back in Felderwin, about the sorts of things his master had believed? And that sort of mindset, embedded in people as young as Caleb, turned on Molly—

She clenches her teeth. Onstage, the cloth hydra falls at last, and the actress playing Lady Margaret kneels down, as if planting her fake sword in the wooden floor, and prays loudly to the Platinum Dragon, clutching a symbol in her hands.

This figure, this mythical Lady Margaret—she’d lost someone she loved. She lost two people that she had loved so dearly, one taken and turned on her by the enemy, the other just...gone, senselessly, no matter how they’d died. Doesn’t _that_ sound familiar.

“That’s not true,” says Caleb, snapping Yasha out of the downward spiral her thoughts. His voice is soft and low, and he leans in just a little bit closer, as if trying to keep his voice low. His mouth is turned downwards in a peeved frown, the kind reserved for people who’ve kicked his cat. “So far as I could tell, Lady Margaret did not worship anyone. Either that, or she reserved her devotions for a god that the Empire forbade. But either way, there is no record of her being devoted to the _Platinum Dragon_ , not even in some of the truly fanciful songs.”

“So this is just pandering to the crowd?” Yasha whispers. The audience breaks into cheers as the actress stands and takes her bow. “It’s working. When did you pick all of this up?”

“You would be surprised what three very bored students get up to in a library bigger than any they have ever seen before,” says Caleb. “We ran out of the books that Jester would be interested in and went for the rest.”

“...could you tell me about a few?” says Yasha. “Just. The ones you think were the best.”

“Oh, _ja_ , I can,” says Caleb.


	41. hiding in the glitter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Gabrielle Aplin's "Lying to the Mirror".
> 
> SO THAT KICKSTARTER, HUH.

Fjord finds Molly sitting just outside the shop, scribbling in his notebook. It’s a weird thing to see, he realizes quickly, because before all of this he’d never known Molly to write anything, but now that he’s back that’s—pretty much all he can do, really.

Fuck, that’s a shit thing to do to someone.

...that’s not the first time Fjord has thought that about literally _anything_ about Molly’s current situation, which says a lot, doesn’t it. And he’s angry about it, he truly is, he wants to march to Rexxentrum and chuck all the bastards that did this to _two_ of his people into the ocean and _fuck_ the consequences, but—well, right now, that wouldn’t be helpful to either Molly or Caleb.

He stomps once, twice, loud enough to get Molly’s attention. Molly looks up, shutting his notebook and tucking it away into his coat, and gets to his feet, tail swaying behind him.

“Feel like getting out of here and getting back to the inn?” Fjord asks.

“Gods, please,” Molly mutters. “What did I miss?”

“Not a lot, honestly,” says Fjord, as the two of them set off again. He tosses a glance over his shoulder just to check if Lestra’s come out to see them off, but there’s no trace of her, as if she’s not keen on stepping outside of her shop. With all the warnings that’s been tossed their way about this town and its criminal underbelly, Fjord can’t really blame her.

He also can’t wait till they’ve finished up here and gotten Molly his freedom and his voice back. This place is nice while the festival’s going on, but they’re in so deep in its shit now that there’s no way they’re not going to start drowning any time soon.

Molly pulls him to the side, and just in time, because a tortle lumbers past them, tooting out a cheerful tune.

“I should really introduce you to Orly,” says Fjord, absently. “Uh. Could you say something?”

“Subtle,” says Molly, dryly, “and he’s the navigator you hired for your little ocean adventure, right? Yeah, I’d love to actually talk to him someday, thank him for keeping you all safe and alive while you were off being pirates without me.” He nudges Fjord’s side, and adds, with a mischievious grin, “Really couldn’t wait till I could come back to you, huh? I’ve never been a pirate before, I might’ve liked it. They’ve got those big hats, right?”

“Yeah, honestly,” says Fjord, softly, “we missed you. I figured you’d have loved the beach, it’s—peaceful. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“Yes,” says Molly, “gods, _yes_. I’ve never been to the beach before, the circus never really went anywhere near it. Gustav said he’d burn in the sun and Ornna would complain the sand got everywhere, but I heard stories and I wanted to see.”

“Well, it’s everything you ever thought it was,” says Fjord. “And—y’know, you could meet Jester’s mom. She’s a very nice lady, and Jester wasn’t wrong, she sings damn well. What do you think?”

“I’d love to meet her,” says Molly. “I—would love to have been there. Stories are one thing, and those I like, but there’s nothing like experiencing things for yourself.” He sighs. “Are there candy shops there? Jester’s got to have picked that sweet tooth up somewhere, and I’ve been wanting to check at least one of them out for a while now.”

“Didn’t really go to one in Nicodranas,” says Fjord. “There wasn’t a whole lot of time the first time we got there, and when we got back we kinda got occupied by this tower that rises in size the closer you get.”

Molly squints at him. He holds his hand out, the fingers pointing down. It lifts slowly up, in a very familiar arc.

Fjord flushes and says, “Not like that!”

Molly raises an eyebrow at him. His hand mimes deflating. Fjord glances towards the crowd and, for a moment, seriously considers tossing himself into the path of that fire-dancer spinning around, kicking a shapely leg up. That would be less embarrassing than, like, dying because of Molly miming a dick at him.

“We should probably go talk to Fortunato again,” he says, and the suggestion gets a nod out of Molly. “They’re good folk, they seem local. Might be they’re willing to tell us a couple things.”

So they detour, veering off the way back to the inn towards the little stall where Mx. Fortunato the halfling fortuneteller’s set themself up. It’s still a bare thing between more outlandish stalls, and on the way Fjord buys another cone of cotton candy, because Jester might like it. Scratch that, Jester will love it, exclaiming over it and grinning wide like she hit the jackpot, making Fjord’s fool heart go just that teensy bit faster.

Molly doesn’t say anything, a side effect of the Geas spells, but the same spells aren’t keeping him from raising an eyebrow and smiling knowingly at Fjord.

Fjord diligently does not look at him, not until he hears a shout from the direction of Mx. Fortunato’s stall: “Hey! Hey, you _dick_ , come back here, that’s my lunch!” _Then_ he looks at Molly first, just as some punk tries to push past them, holding a plate of roast chicken sprinkled with parsley aloft.

Molly tilts his head to the side, seemingly innocuously. Blood bursts from the peacock feather on his neck, and the would-be lunch thief trips over someone and, with a panicked shriek, goes down hard. The chicken goes flying, and Fjord, with a sigh, sticks his hand out to catch it as Mx. Fortunato runs up to the two of them.

“Oh, thank the gods—hey, you’re back,” says Fortunato, resting their hands on their knees and trying to get their breath back. “Are you all right now, Miss Molly? I was a little scared back there.”

Molly nods, prodding the poor thief with a foot and a sour twist to his lips, like he’s just eaten a lemon.

“Here’s your lunch,” says Fjord, handing the chicken back to Fortunato. “You, uh, doing all right?”

“Until someone tried to steal my _lunch_ , just fine, really,” says Fortunato. “Thanks for that by the way. What brings you folk back here? Do you still need help for talking to that girl you like?”

Molly chortles, and tugs his notebook out to scribble something. Fjord very stubbornly does not look at him, not even when he feels Molly’s tail smacking his thigh.

“Your friend thinks you need all the help you can get,” Fortunato informs him, with a look so earnest that Fjord half-thinks they’re probably joking or something. He squints down at them, searching for some confirmation of his suspicions, but there’s nothing on their face that stands out. They probably are just that earnest, and Fjord’s just paranoid. “And, well, y’know, I really am willing to help.”

Fjord breathes out slowly, then turns to look at Molly, who’s scribbled, _y pls he and a muchual frend hav a crush on each other and its painfull to watch._

Molly smirks at him, and writes, _it realy is tho._

“Forgot how much of an asshole you could be,” Fjord mutters, and Molly chuckles, leaning against him, his tail curling around Fjord’s ankle. “No, actually, we just—wanted to know a bit more about this town. We’re new here in town, and we’ve been reading up, but we’d like to know more about it from a local.” And from someone who isn’t belligerently drunk half the time and hiding something the other half.

Fortunato hums, then tears off a chicken leg and starts nibbling at it, chewing thoughtfully. When they swallow, they say, “Well, I’m gonna go back to what I was doing pretty quick, I do still have to turn a profit today, but how about before dusk? There’s a fair happening in the center of town that I’m planning to skip, you guys can come by here and I’ll take you to my apartment, I have lots of stuff on Lynbroke and its history.” They hesitate a moment, then add, “Just—be nice to my neighbor, all right? She’s an old lady and she doesn’t remember things all that good.”

Fjord looks back at Molly, just in time to watch the smile drop off his face for a second before he pastes it back on. If he hadn’t seen that drop, he doesn’t think he’d have realized that smile doesn’t quite reach those red eyes, the usual mischief dulling somewhat. He thinks, suddenly, of Jester dancing by herself in the bar, her feet stomping and her arms waving, tail swaying and whipping behind her.

She’d sung in the dark. She’d tried to cheer everyone up. She’d been bright in the darkness, grinning wide and making up nonsense lyrics. She’d seemed unshakeable down there, and the only time Fjord had seen a crack had been when the Shepherds took Yasha away.

And when they couldn’t see Molly, of course. _Where’s Molly?_

 _I think it is an act,_ Caleb had said, watching her dance. At the time Fjord hadn’t quite known what to do with that, because Jester had seemed so effortless in the way she danced. As the time had gone on he’d managed to get a few more peeks behind the curtain of her smile, and—he likes to think he’s better at being able to tell, now, when something’s an act with Jester and when it’s not. Likes to, anyway.

He thinks Molly’s putting on an act, right now. Honestly, it’s not like Fjord can really blame him for pretending to be okay. In his position, Fjord would probably be doing so much worse. He’s pretty strong.

“Yeah,” Fjord says to Fortunato. “Fair warning, though, we’ll probably be bringing a couple more friends with us, and they can be a handful. We’ll try to keep them in line,” Molly muffles a snicker and turns it into a cough, “but uh, keep an eye on some of your valuables, yeah?”

“Ah,” says Fortunato, making a face. “Will do.” They snap off a smart salute, and add, “Thanks, though! I’ll see you back here in a few hours’ time?”

“You will,” Fjord promises. “And welcome.” He rests a hand on Molly’s shoulder and says, “Come on, let’s mosey on back to the inn.”

 _wat the fuck is mozi a fansy way of walking,_ Molly writes as they walk away from Fortunato, because so many of Fjord’s friends are show-offs and Molly’s somehow mastered the art of writing while walking.

“...yeah, let’s go with that,” says Fjord.

\--

A brief interlude, away from our heroes making their way back to the inn:

Goyong’s walking his beat down the street, against the current of the crowds, when a hand shoots out of a door, covers his mouth, and drags him into an empty store.

He grabs at the hand over his mouth, trying to pull it away as his eyes struggle to adjust to the darkness, before a very familiar, very irritated voice says, “God fucking dammit, Goyong, it’s just me.”

The hand withdraws. Goyong whirls around, his sword half-drawn, before he lays eyes on Verrin—and it’s certainly Verrin, same dark hair, same dark eyes. But there’s a flask peeking out of her jacket, and the smile she used to wear for her friends is gone, replaced by a bitter scowl. Her hair’s all in disarray now, none of the careful braids Janie used to plait it into present, and her clothes are far darker than he’s ever seen her wear.

“Are—Ver, are you _okay,_ ” he says, stunned. Then: “I’ve been trying to contact you for months! I heard you were back in town and— _drinking_ people under the table, what the hell?”

“Don’t,” says Verrin, simply. “I know.”

“Why didn’t you answer?!”

“Didn’t feel like it,” says Verrin, with a shrug. “Besides, you were flying high, too high for little old me to reach.”

“You didn’t even _try_ ,” says Goyong, running a hand through his hair and slumping against the door. The wood makes an ominous creaking noise as his weight rests against it, and he immediately straightens up. “I was never all that far, you just had to go to the barracks. Or—what, were you too busy drinking?”

Verrin’s lips press into a tight line. “You were busy,” she says. “And I had other shit to do. Shit I’m sure the Crownsguard captain’s hawk wouldn’t approve of, if his sight were really all that keen.”

 _Remember you are a hawk,_ the captain had said to him, clapping him on the shoulder. _Soar like one, my boy._ He’d said it with pride, like Goyong was the best of the guard—and he was, he _is_ or he wouldn’t be here.

But the way Verrin says it carries a derision that rubs at Goyong’s ego the wrong way, throws into relief just how big the gulf between them has grown. And Janie—it had always been the three of them, Verrin, ‘Yong and Janie, but now she isn’t here, and her absence is an open wound between him and his oldest friend. If Verrin even is his friend, anymore.

“That’s—just a nickname,” he says, although the words hurt to say. _Remember who you are_. “It’s still me.”

“No,” says Verrin. “Y’know the thing about those Soltryce uniforms me and Janie used to wear, the ones she used to complain in our letters itched like hell? The body changes to fit.” She gestures to Goyong’s breastplate, a hand sneaking into her jacket to pull the flask out. “No reason not to think it’s not the same for Crownsguard armor.”

“What are you talking about?”

For a moment, her eyes seem to slide away from Goyong, and he can swear that she hesitates. “Nothing,” she says, after a space he measures in heartbeats, her smile a sharp thing in the darkness. “Just insights you get when you drink a bit.”

“Or a lot,” says Goyong. “You think I don’t keep an eye on you, Ver? Since you got back I’ve been hearing about you getting in fights drunk, causing property damage, disturbing the public peace, the works. I’m worried.”

“And I’m real fucking touched,” Verrin shoots back. “Wonder if you’ve heard about Brandybuck’s shadier deals too. Or about your fellow guards’ little sidelines.”

Goyong grits his teeth. “Unsubstantiated rumors,” he says.

“And they call _you_ a hawk,” Verrin says, and for a moment he sees pity flashing across her eyes. That stings worse than her words, really, the _pity_ , because—well, how dare she, when she’s doing worse than he is, when he’s doing some real good in this town, the first since Mikhail had to retire, and all she’s doing is just pissing her potential away. “You’re blind as a damn bat.”

“And you’re drunk as a goblin in a barrel of rum,” says Goyong, his voice more acidic than he intended. He winces, as it leaves his mouth, because—well, it’s uncalled for. Probably. Fine, it’s called for, but it’s _Verrin_. Despite everything, despite her anger and the gulf between them, she’s still the same girl who saved him from a backalley brawl all those years ago. So he adds, in a more restrained voice, “So why come talk to me now?”

“I need a favor,” says Verrin.

...maybe not quite the same. Goyong lets out a breath. “I can’t do you favors,” he starts.

“Just one,” she wheedles. “Just _one_. I’m—working with these _tourists_ that just came to town, and there’s something I think they’re trying to keep back.”

“You want me to keep an eye on them?” Goyong asks, frowning. “I can put some men on them, but I don’t know how feasible that is.”

“Not that, they’re paranoid as fuck,” says Verrin. “Listen, you’re lieutenant, you’ve got access to the files the Crownsguard keeps, right?”

“Every guard does,” says Goyong. “We’re just not allowed to take them home. Can you please get to the point, Ver?”

“I need you to look for any mention of someone named Avantika,” says Verrin. “Apparently before she died she used to send supplies here, but I got that info from one of those tourists and like fuck am I taking it at face value.”

The name doesn’t really ring a bell, per se. Then again, Goyong hasn’t been lieutenant long either, so he sighs. “If I don’t find anything?” he asks.

“Tell me if you do or don’t,” says Verrin.

“Okay, _how?_ ”

Verrin purses her lips for a moment, then lets out a breath. “You know Carr and Kerr’s old man? Used to live in the apartment next to me and Janie and her mom, had this rocking chair over this floorboard and whenever he rocked it would creak so goddamn loud you heard it from downstairs?”

“How can I forget?” Goyong huffs out a laugh. “I could never _sleep_ with that noise.”

And for a moment, she smiles, soft and sad, and Goyong sees one of his closest friends again. Then her face shutters it away, and she unscrews the cap of her flask. “Leave a note under that floorboard,” she says. “Like old times.”

Goyong lets out a breath. “Fine,” he says. “I can’t tell you details about anything active, but if I find anything about this… _Avantika_ in the files, you’ll be the first to hear.” He hesitates a moment, scared to say anything more, scared to say something that might cause her to lash out, considering how drunk she is, angry and hurt that needing a favor from him is what breaks her silence, so, so damningly curious. He should just go. He promised her this already, he doesn’t need anything else.

Except there’s an open wound between them, and Goyong doesn’t know how it got there. He has to, if he’s to have any hope of treating it. “Just do me one thing in return,” he says.

“What?” Verrin asks, before tilting her head back and pouring half her flask down her throat.

He takes a deep breath. Now or never. “What happened between you and Janie?” he asks, and Verrin goes still. “She went off to the Academy, and then you started reading stuff in the library—myths and histories and theories of magic that were already disproven. And then _you_ went off too, but you came back and she hasn’t. What happened?”

“You really wanna know what happened?” Verrin asks.

He nods.

“We argued,” says Verrin. “I left. That’s it.”

“You two always made up afterwards, though,” says Goyong. “I think the record before now was three days. What’s changed this time?”

Verrin stashes her flask away into her jacket, and folds her arms across her chest. It’s strange, she’s wearing something with far longer sleeves than he’s used to seeing on her. “She just said some things she was keeping back,” she says. “That’s all. The rest is none of your go—none of your business.”

“Kind of is, though,” says Goyong.

“Last I checked you’re not my mother,” Verrin snidely says. “Don’t pretend to be her, you’re shit at it.” Before he can respond, before he can snap back at her, she opens the door and walks back out into the sunlight.

Goyong sighs, and walks out too after a moment. He looks around, trying to catch sight of dark hair and a dark jacket walking down the street, standing out in a hurricane of bright colors.

No luck there. Verrin’s nowhere to be found once more.


	42. funny it takes the time to get back up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Aquilo's "You There".
> 
> cw for panic attack from "He’d screamed himself hoarse in there." to "That’s him. That’s his name."

Don’t get Molly wrong—he’s happy to be back. He missed the Mighty Nein something fierce in his lucid moments, few and far between as they were, and now that he’s back with them he’s almost giddy with relief sometimes. He can trust these people. He can love them, and he does, although one attachment is a tad more romantic than the rest.

He just—

“You must be Molly, right?” says the little gnome girl with the sticks in her hair and the dazzling grin and the _squirrel_. He’s currently on drinks duty, but Jester had made him take the gnome girl along so she could make the order for him, and she’s excitable, to say the least. She’s practically bouncing on her heels. How old is this girl? Where the fuck are her parents? “I’m Twiggy! And you’ve already met Trixie.”

Molly eyes the squirrel with some trepidation. Bo always used to claim squirrels were fat sources of protein. This one looks skinny as fuck. So does the gnome. _Where the fuck are her parents_ , Molly can’t go through another Kiri situation again, especially not in this state, doesn’t anyone know how dangerous he could be to children when he goes blank?

He writes, _y Im Mollymauk Tealeaf but cal me Molly._

Twiggy squints at his handwriting. “Like the bird?” she asks when they reach the counter. The bartender’s arguing with another patron for the moment, so Molly doesn’t think they’ll be able to get their drinks just yet.

 _ ~~ly~~ like the bird,_ he writes. _mom ~~lykd~~ likd how it sounded._

“Your mom has really good taste,” says Twiggy, sincerely.

 _Thanks, I made her up myself,_ Molly does not say, or write. He smiles wanly, instead, and somewhat tragically. Judging by how her face falls somewhat as something seems to sink in, she’s bought that story.

Fuck yeah, he’s still got it.

Twiggy doesn’t say anything for a while, instead propping her chin up on her hand and watching him as he doodles idly in the margins of his notebook. She’s a strange one, this gnome girl they’ve picked up, a bundle of enthusiasm and joy that’s about the same height as Nott, and probably just as young. In gnome years, anyway. Which are—shit, at what age do gnomes mature again? She doesn’t _seem_ like she’s hit it, but then again he never knows.

His tail flicks to the side, a dull twinge of pain accompanying the movement. He winces, a little. There’d been a time when it didn’t hurt, he knows, but it’s a hazy memory now.

It might—

It might never _stop_.

He shivers, and glances at the bartender, still engaged in an argument about the prices of beer and wine. He needs a drink, and badly, but no amount of gentle drumming and not-subtle thumping on the counter is going to get the bartender’s attention when he’s in this deep in an argument, apparently. And the thing about not being able to talk without an order from one specific person means he _can’t shout for attention_.

And then Twiggy shouts, “Hey! Hey!”

The bartender breaks away, squints at Twiggy and Molly, and says, “What do you folks want?”

“I’m talkin’ to you!” shouts the regular, a burly-looking, actually somewhat handsome dwarf. Months ago Molly would’ve slid into the seat next to him and asked if he was looking for a good time. Now he just wants to smack the arsehole around the head, tell him not to hog the gods-damned bartender for maybe five minutes so other people can get their drinks. But this is the only inn in town with enough room for the Mighty Nein, and he’s not about to risk getting thrown out. They’re already on thin ice.

Also, see again: Geas-induced inability to _fucking talk_.

There’s a special hell reserved for Astrid and Eodwulf and Ikithon and the whole sorry bloody lot and the chief sin that’s landing them all there is “keeping Molly from saying whatever the fuck he wants”.

“Fuck _you_ , I got other customers,” the bartender snaps. “Now sit down and shut up and wait your turn, or I swear to god I’ll ban you for the rest of this festival. I don’t need your money, I got plenty of people coming in.”

“We’ve got money and we want ale!” Twiggy calls. May the Moonweaver bless her soul. Molly moves her up in his list, just below the Mighty Nein as a collective and above Kiri. At least Twiggy’s proving herself to be just as capable at raising her voice and getting attention as his friends.

The bartender flips the dwarf off, then ducks back down behind the counter. There’s the clink of glasses, the sound of liquids pouring, then light footsteps on a wooden floor before the bartender’s head pops back up over the counter, sliding two ales across.

“Can we have four more?” asks Twiggy. “And a glass of milk and do you have anything that’s chocolate?”

“I like you,” says the bartender, then he gets back to work.

“So!” says Twiggy, looking back at Molly with big blue eyes. He hadn’t realized anyone’s eyes could be that big, honestly. Are they _sure_ she’s a gnome? Gnomish eyes are a little bit smaller than that. Right? Probably. He’ll have to ask someone who’s got more experience with gnomes than Molly does. “Jester told me a little bit about you on the way here. You’re really a fortune-teller? Can you do a reading for me?”

Only if she wants to get upset over getting the card that’s literally got the goddess of death on it. _y Im a forchunteler,_ he writes. _but Im not at my best riygt now how mutch did Jester tel you?_

“Just a little bit,” says Twiggy. “That you’d been taken by very bad people, mostly. And—well, I used to be kept by some very bad people too.” She pauses. “One bad person,” she corrects. “Do you know a Sir Cadigan?”

Somewhere in Molly’s ruined memory, the name sparks something: Eodwulf, talking about a contact in Port Damali who owned an auction house, arguing with Astrid over his reliability while they were hauling him out of the dark little cell they’d stuck him in as punishment.

He’d screamed himself hoarse in there. Didn’t he? _Let me out let me out don’t leave me alone please let me out—_

“Hey, are you okay? Molly?”

Who—

“Oh. _Oh._ ” A voice whispers, and something chitters and scurries away. He chokes on the darkness, claws at his throat to clear it out get it off _let me go let me out please let me out please don’t let me be alone in the dark please please please_ , and two small hands grip at his wrists. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. Do you wanna go outside? I’ll take you outside. It’s nice out, there’s sunshine and fresh air.”

A small hand in his, pulling him out of the darkness, the sound of footsteps, the warmth of sunlight on his skin. A second later, another voice cuts through: “Let me—Mollymauk? Mollymauk, can you hear me?”

He knows that voice. He reaches out, grips onto the coat with a soft broken whine of need, because that voice belongs to—to—

“Okay, okay, breathe with me, _ja_ , Mr. Mollymauk? Follow how I’m breathing. In, hold, then out. In, hold, then out.”

“You’re safe,” the voice from before says, the lighter one. “You’re okay. You’re out in the sunlight now, and everything’s going to be okay.”

He shuts his eyes, and breathes, loosening the iron band around his lungs. In, hold, then out. In, hold, then out.

“It’s just us, Mollymauk.”

That’s him. That’s his name.

And that’s Caleb, and the other voice is Twiggy, and when Molly opens his eyes they’re in the alleyway next to their inn, and he can _breathe_ again.

“Back with us?” Caleb asks. “ _Sag etwas_ , Mollymauk.”

Molly could kiss him. “Yeah,” he manages instead, still clutching onto Caleb’s coat like it’s a lifeline. Maybe it is. “Yeah, I’m here.” He glances over to Twiggy, who’s blinking at him in surprise, then adds, “Hi. I talk sometimes.”

“Are you okay?” Twiggy asks, reaching for his hand.

He shakes his head, and glances beseechingly at Caleb.

“ _Sag etwas,_ Mollymauk,” says Caleb, again, and Molly breathes a sigh of relief as the spell loosens its grip on his throat.

“I’m fine,” he says. “Just—think I knew him? Sir Cadigan. I knew about him, anyway, I don’t _think_ I met him.” He could try to dig deeper, but the thought of going anywhere near those seven months willingly makes his stomach churn. “And even if I did, neither of us would try to remember each other. He seems like an arsehole, and I—my memory isn’t the most reliable, right now.”

“Why not?”

“Someone with—with a grudge decided to fuck with his head,” says Caleb, as evasively as possible. It’s true, but it’s just vague enough that whatever picture Twiggy might be coming up with is puppies and rainbows compared to what Molly really went through. “Is that right?”

Molly nods, letting go of Caleb’s coat at last, and pulls his own coat tighter around himself. The weight of the fabric on his shoulders is a comfort—it’s his, really and truly, it’s _his_.

“Oh,” says Twiggy. “Did they have something to do with Sir Cadigan? You only froze up when you heard his name.”

Molly nods, again, shoving the memory back down. He’s nowhere near Astrid and Eodwulf anymore. He knows who he is, knows who he stands with, and he knows that he used to be _better_ at not showing people the truth behind his carnival barker’s grin. He rubs his thumb over the hem of his coat.

“You’ve met him?” Twiggy asks, her eyes going sad and sympathetic.

Molly runs his teeth over his lower lip, then shakes his head, the charms swaying with the movement. His hand is already going into his pocket for his notebook before Caleb pulls it out of his own coat and presses it into his chest.

“You left it on the counter,” Caleb says, softly, and for a second fear claws into Molly’s throat as he clutches his notebook close. What if someone saw? What if someone read it? What if— “No one has read it,” Caleb continues, his hand on Molly’s, steady and sure. “No one’s had the chance to, I made sure of it.”

Molly breathes out slowly, and manages a smile, small and grateful. He’s grown fond of this notebook, for all that he’s only had it for a few days. It’s his as much as the coat and the dress and the charms are—the Empire didn’t like their corpse soldiers having any possessions, much less trinkets and charms that could compromise stealth. Just having all these back feels a lot like spitting in the Empire’s eye.

He bumps Caleb’s forehead with his own, lightly, the closest he can come to bumping horns with him. Caleb smiles back.

If things were different, he’d have brushed a thumb over Caleb’s lower lip by now. He’d have leaned in, pressed their mouths together, and maybe Caleb would kiss back, his hands on Molly’s hips, or maybe one hand might skim up his body to rest against the nape of his neck, tender and gentle. Maybe he’d press Molly up against the wall, or maybe he’d break away and invite him upstairs, and—

And that won’t happen, will it. This is the closest thing Molly will have. This is the closest thing he’ll allow himself, because they’re both more than a little bit fucked up now, and it’s unfair to Caleb if Molly were to act on his crush now.

He lets Caleb break away, doesn’t even try to curl his tail around his bony wrist.

Twiggy says, breaking Molly out of his reverie, “Should I—be going inside, right now? I mean, you guys might like a little bit of privacy to have some,” and she _winks_ , the little rascal, “ _alone time_. And I’ll be happy to!”

“Ah, _nein_ , Twiggy,” says Caleb, hurriedly, straightening out the lapels of his coat. “I was—I was just going inside, actually. I just came out here because we were all worried, and I was the first one out, and um, I will just. Go now.” He snaps his fingers, and Frumpkin curls around Molly’s ankles as Caleb backs away. “We’ll spare an ale for you,” he says, and flees the scene almost immediately.

Molly stares after him, looks down at the notebook, and clutches it close.

Twiggy tugs on the hem of his coat, and he looks down at her, and her big blue eyes. “I know a couple of tips for not letting it get to you,” she says. “The—The darkness, I mean. I kind of know a little bit about that.” She looks down, kicks at the ground, and it’s maybe the first time in the twenty minutes and less that Molly’s known her that she’s shown any emotion other than exuberant cheer. He sort of hadn’t realized she _had_ any other emotion. “Sir Cadigan kept me in the dark for a little while,” she says. “That’s sort of why I’m like this.”

 _like wat,_ Molly writes.

“A little weird,” says Twiggy, with a smile as she looks back up at him. “You know, this is the first festival I’ve ever been to? And it’s _really cool_.”

Molly looks up, watches an elf and a human laughing and twirling together, a whirlwind of clashing colors and music and joy. _if you want mor partys like this then I have an ideya,_ he writes, _you can go to huperdook they hold somthing lyk this all the time ther they hav fyrworks and flowers and shit._

“I’ve been there!” says Twiggy. “It was pretty fun, but all-night parties can get kind of old after a while, if you know they happen every night.” She leans against his leg. “And that wasn’t a festival, I think. This is, and it’s loads of fun. It’s so— _bright_.” There’s a note of wonder in her voice, like she hadn’t realized anything could be so colorful.

Molly scrapes a fang lightly over his lower lip. He hadn’t remembered what it felt like to be out in the light, basking in colors and free to do anything he could think of, until his coat had been pressed back into his hands. That’s what being trapped in the dark does to a person—saps out all the life from them, the colors and the music and the laughter and the memory, until all that’s left is an empty shell that knows nothing else but darkness.

He hadn’t deserved it. Neither does Twiggy, even if she probably never went through the same things he did.

 _theres a stal neerbye that sells silk flowers and strings them into crowns,_ he writes.

“Really?” breathes Twiggy, her smile going wide and warm.

_ya just stay clos to me._

“I will!” Twiggy cheers, and she grabs Molly’s hand and pulls him out of the alleyway and into the festival.

\--

“I _really_ don’t like this Verrin,” Yasha says, after Beau finishes up her story. Which is fair. Hard to like a person whose way of talking to people involves pinning them to a wall, but they’ve all done something like that before. Hell, Beau’s entire thing is punching the truth out of people—most she’s gonna have to do is wind a scarf around her neck, keep a bruise from showing through.

“Just gotta be more careful about what we say around her, ‘s’all,” says Beau.

“She _pinned you to a wall_ ,” says Yasha.

“It was kinda hot until the arm-pressing happened,” says Beau, and Yasha makes an unhappy noise. “Anyway, I threw her off the trail, she thinks we were talking about Avantika.”

At the mention of Avantika, Fjord coughs and sinks slightly lower into his seat, shooting a look at Molly’s empty seat, like he’s checking if Molly’s still out. Beau wonders idly if they’ve talked about Avantika in greater detail to Molly, there’s a lot about that mess that she’s damn sure he’d get judgmental at them over. Probably. Maybe. Highly likely he would, anyway, he’s stubborn like that, his annoyingly smug grin reemerged from the depths of horrible brainwashing after like, a _day_.

Jester’s face just scrunches up at the mention of Avantika. “She might find out,” she says.

“But we got a bit of time before she does,” says Beau, then props her elbow up on the table, pulling her leg up absently. “Anyway, so this—Carr and Kerr that we’re supposed to find, do we know where to start? Do we at least have some idea?”

“Their old place,” says Caleb. “And Nott knows where it is.”

Nott startles, and says, “Wait, I do?”

“ _Ja_ , you trailed a certain someone there,” says Caleb.

Ah, jeez, Verrin _again_ —Nott had mentioned trailing her once to what had apparently been her childhood home, hadn’t she. “For a random drunk, she’s pretty well-connected,” Beau says, drumming her fingers on the table. “Even for a small town.”

“Twiggy and I stole some letters from Janille,” says Nott, dumping the letters out on the table. Beau picks one up, scans it over, and frowns—it’s encrypted, but there’s a signature on the bottom that’s crisp and clean, reading _A. Koenigsmann_. “ _These_ are coded, and Caleb, you should take these, you could crack them in an afternoon. There were letters, though, that weren’t coded and that we didn’t take, and they had Verrin’s signature on them. She didn’t _sound_ like Verrin in them, though, there were a lot less fucks.”

“Maybe not the Verrin we know, anyway,” says Jester.

Caleb doesn’t look at them, just looks down at his hands and starts to fiddle with the bandages wrapped loosely around his arms. Beau’s not sure why he went back to that, after so long spent going without them in their presence, but she’s got a theory and it involves his old friend Astrid, and what she might see if she ever deigned to scry on Molly. Caleb’s neat little hatchmark scars might just be a dead giveaway, if someone were looking for them.

Gods, they’re playing with fire here. For anyone else, Beau would’ve had second thoughts a long time ago and bailed the hell out of there.

But fuck, it’s Molly. He fucking died for her. He’s one of theirs, and Beau can’t help but wonder if they fucked up somewhere, if they could’ve saved him earlier. Maybe he’d be less fucked up, if they did.

 _Or maybe you’d all be in even more trouble with the Assembly,_ a voice whispers in the back of her head, cold and calculating, as pragmatic as Dairon. Beau shivers, and pushes that thought away, no matter if it’s got a point.

Anyway—

“So Nott and I can head there to Carr and Kerr’s apartment,” Caleb’s saying, drumming his fingers on the table, “and we will not take very long. It has been a year since our targets disappeared, so it’s likely anything they might’ve left behind has already faded, but it cannot hurt to try. Perhaps we might be able to find some leads, before we end up having to storm a warehouse.”

“We could go check it out again tonight,” Jester says. “Maybe see if there’s anything we missed last night, or if there’s any other way in we could use.”

“We’d have to be pretty careful, though,” says Beau, “last time we were there we had to deal with a couple of smugglers.” She nods to Jester, and says, “Jester, how about you, me, Yasha and Nott take this? Make a girls’ night of it?” That’s herself and Nott on the warehouse again to be guides, while Yasha covers their asses and Jester casts Pass Without A Trace on them and makes sure they don’t die horribly.

“ _Girls’ night!_ ” Jester cheers.

“I like this plan,” says Yasha.

“But in the meantime,” Fjord breaks in, “before tonight, we gotta get Caleb those papers—”

“ _Ja,_ the lieutenant mentioned it would not take very long to get them signed,” says Caleb. “The sooner I can get them the better the help we can render, to get that web out of Mollymauk’s head.”

“—and he’s gonna be busy taking a look at that apartment, which means, hey, Beau, you wanna come with me and pick ‘em up for him?”

“Yeah, sure,” says Beau, leaning over to pluck a tart ( _hey!_ ) from Jester’s plate and nibble on it. Her elbow jostles against Nott’s head. “Sorry. Anyway, they’re probably already on the lookout for Jester and Nott and—maybe Twiggy too?”

“Nah, just us,” says Nott. “Also, _ow_ , get your elbow off my head, why’s it so fucking _sharp_?”

“I do fifteen push-ups and five sit-ups every morning, that’s how,” says Beau.

“That doesn’t make a lick of sense!”

“It does,” says Yasha, sipping at her mug of ale. A corner of her mouth turns up as Beau shoots a grateful glance her way, and Beau’s heart sprints off like a smuggler with the Crownsguard hot on its trail, beating fast against her chest. “It’s a little—you know how you kind of, um,” and she mimes cranking a crossbow, “do this for when you want to shoot people?”

“You are _not_ making any sense,” says Nott.

“She’s making sense!” says Jester.

“Then explain to me how because I have no fucking clue—”

“Who’s keeping an eye on Mollymauk?” Caleb quickly interrupts, and thank fucking god, because if they go on like this they’re gonna beat that simile into the ground. Beau regrets making it already, and as a concession, very carefully does not jostle Nott with her elbow again. “Jester, you and Yasha are free for the afternoon, _ja?_ ”

Jester opens her mouth to answer, and then her eyes slide to the door and she shouts, “Twiggy! Molly! Holy _shit_ where did you guys get all that stuff, you were only gone for—Caleb, how long were they gone for?”

“Twenty minutes and twenty-two seconds,” says Caleb.

Beau squints sideways at him, and writes him off as a lost cause—she’s never seen someone look so stupidly in love. Then she looks at Molly and says, “Oh, god, you’re even tackier than usual. What even is that hat?”

Molly pushes the hat up so it’s artfully tipped sideways on his horns, exposing his red eyes and gleeful grin. It’s a truly ridiculous hat, with a wide, floppy brim with little red, white and blue beads dangling off of it, and a band that’s striped with white and blue set against the hat’s deep red color. Stuck in the band are two large plumes of pink and yellow, and at the very top is some—some sort of tiny statuette? Beau squints. Yep, that’s Lady Margaret, or a badly-painted rendition of her.

Molly catches her staring and winks, tossing his head dramatically to the side. The beads dangling off the brim fly out, and it’s a miracle no one’s near enough to get smacked by any of them. Beau considers going out and buying all the tacky hats she can find, so he can’t offend her all the more.

Twiggy, wearing a smaller version with a little veil attached to the front, says happily, “I’ve never had a hat with feathers before! Molly said neither did he, so we got some.” She does a little twirl, and says, “And look! We got some very nice jewelry too.”

Beau glances at Molly, who takes the hat off and tips his head, showing off the costume jewelry decorating his ears. They’re just as shiny as his old charms, as the ones he’s been steadily adding to his horns over the past few days. Some of them match Twiggy’s new jewelry, which Jester’s now cooing over.

“—you get all this?” Jester’s asking.

“Oh, here and there,” says Twiggy.

Molly taps Fjord on the shoulder, and clambers over him ( _you’re welcome_ , Fjord grumbles) to settle down next to Yasha. Thankfully, he takes his hat off once he’s sitting down, granting Beau some relief from that tacky-ass monstrosity.

She looks over to Caleb, about to say something about that hat, and notes the look on his face—his eyes have gone soft, and there’s a small, faint smile under his beard. She’s not even sure he knows he’s smiling.

Sure enough, it disappears when Caleb looks away from Molly to look at Jester, who says, “Well, I’m totally okay with Molly tagging along with us—”

Molly raises a hand, then writes, _Im going wit Caleb hell probably need extra help._

“You don’t even know where I’m going,” says Caleb.

_r you bringing Yasha with u?_

“Ah,” says Caleb, “well, no, but Nott is coming with me—”

“He’s not wrong, you are squishy,” says Nott. “I’m sneakier, and if someone manages to get past me Molly can slice them up.” She glances knowingly over at Molly, and—honestly, at this point, who _doesn’t_ know about those two?

Everyone but themselves, apparently, judging by how Caleb’s sighing at Nott and missing the way Molly’s watching him. Like if Caleb said he needed it for a spell Molly would clamber up into the sky and con the stars into giving up their light, or something clichéd like that. Beau can’t fucking believe this—this pining _bullshit_ unfolding right in front of her. Any other time she’d tell them to please just talk before she strangles them, but—

It’d probably hurt them both way more if their feelings came out into the open now.

“Jester and I can go with Fjord and Beau,” says Yasha, and Beau can’t help but steal a glance over at her. Yasha’s eyes meet hers just then, and Beau’s cheeks grow hot when Yasha smiles at her—just a tiny little smile, almost unsure, and it’s gone as quickly as it came the second Yasha looks away. Beau ducks her head, and stubbornly does not dare to look at anyone else. Especially not Jester or, god forbid, Molly. “We can keep watch, and—you can still disguise yourself, right? Because if not I can hide you behind me to keep the Crownsguard from seeing you. I’m very big.”

“I can still disguise myself!” says Jester, having hoisted Twiggy up onto her lap. “It doesn’t take a whole lot of magic to do that, and even if I was out I’m still really good at makeup.”

“Uh,” says Yasha, who Beau remembers had just been a very green version of herself on the island with all the snake people. Sneeple? “Actually I think I could help with the makeup. I, um. I used to help—I used to be pretty good at it.”

Jester’s face goes soft for a moment, and Beau wonders suddenly what she knows about Yasha that no one else does. She glances at Molly, sees him bumping Yasha’s shoulder with his and offering her a small, reassuring smile, and revises that: no one else besides Molly.

Fjord says, “So if we’re all settled—”

“Can I go with Jester?” Twiggy pipes up, and Beau looks over to see her nibbling on one of Jester’s pastries. “I’ve learned a few tricks since we parted on the Ball Eater.” She wiggles her fingers, looking for all the world like an excitable little kid. Probably is. Beau’s not really all that sure.

She hears Molly chortling at the name of their ship. Hell, she can’t help but smirk a little, especially at Fjord’s wince.

“Of course you can come!” Jester says. “Yasha likes you, anyway.”

“Well, yes,” says Yasha. “You’re—very sweet. It’s endearing.”

“Oh, thanks,” says Twiggy, “I think you’re _very_ nice, Miss Yasha.”

Beau raps once, twice on the table, drawing everyone’s attention. “If we’re done here,” she says, “can we please have the rest of our drinks now?”

“Actually,” says Yasha, “Beau? Can I talk to you for a moment, outside? It’s—It won’t be long, I promise.” She fiddles with a lock of hair, and says, her brilliant eyes focused all on Beau, “It’s important.”


	43. broken words i've tried to say

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from OneRepublic's "Something I Need".

Molly squeezes Yasha’s hand on her way out, a reassurance and a vote of confidence that Yasha sorely needs, because her heart is beating so fast it’s a wonder it hasn’t somehow escaped her ribcage by now. She knows this feeling. She knows it intimately, and it—it scares her. Would she be betraying Zuala, by giving this gift? Caleb had called it a courting gift, after all, and she does have feelings for Beau, but—

She’s first to step out of the inn. She looks up at the sky, expecting, _hoping_ for it to be a dark grey, but all she sees is light blue, with puffy white clouds floating past. Not exactly the stormclouds she was sort of hoping for, so she could ask for guidance. Or a mission. Something to keep her mind off this feeling.

She tugs the blue scarf out of its pockets, and looks down. She’s intriguing to Beau. She’s attractive to Beau, she knows this, she’s seen Beau’s type and it’s generally strong, powerful women. She doesn’t know about _powerful_ , but Yasha’s strong as hell, and she hadn’t failed to pick up on Beau trying to get her to lift her up into her arms at the circus’s last show, a lifetime ago.

But, well, Beau’s—looking around, too. Beau tumbles into bed with quite a lot of women, and watches a lot more with a lopsided smile and a look in her eye. Yasha hasn’t missed the way Beau looks at Verrin, either, and that is such a bad idea that she’s sure even Molly would think twice before bedding her. And she’d once had to extract Molly from a _situation_ that involved twins, a séance, and what he’d laughingly called “forbidden ancient sex magic”.

But Beau looks at her, and it’s—it’s different. She thinks. Probably.

She lets her head fall back against the wall. “This is stupid,” she mutters. “Maybe—Maybe she just thinks you’re attractive, that’s all. And are you really willing to, to do this? Do you really want to forget Zuala?”

But—would it be forgetting, really?

Would it even be courting, if she just—didn’t _say_ it was, and let Beau pick up on it? Beau’s a smart woman, and when she gets curious and starts asking questions, she usually gets the answers she wants. If she asks, Yasha will give up her reasons. But only if she asks.

Yasha nods. Yes. That’s a good plan.

The door creaks open, and Beau steps out into the sunlight. “Hey,” she says, “what’d you need to talk to me about?”

“You like blue,” says Yasha, “and—I heard you a few times. On the ship and in Xhorhas.”

“Heard me what?” Beau asks.

“You were talking about how much you hated the cold,” Yasha explains. “And I saw this and I thought you might like this a lot.” She takes the scarf off her own neck, and drapes it over Beau’s. “It’s your shade of blue,” she says.

Beau stares at her, then looks down at it, holding up one end with a look as though _Yasha_ landed a strike on her that’s rendered her unable to move or speak or even breathe much. “Oh,” she says. “This is—This is—”

“If it’s too much,” Yasha begins, worriedly.

“No, no,” says Beau, shaking her head and winding it around her neck. “It’s perfect. I just—I never got. I never got presents like this before? ‘Cause my parents always gave me stuff that they thought would push me into being what they wanted, like pretty pink dresses and shit.” She smiles softly down at the ends of the scarf, and looks up at Yasha with naked gratitude in her sky-blue eyes. “This is, what, the first accessory anybody’s ever gotten me that’s _not_ kinda passive-aggressive? It’s. It’s really nice. Thanks.”

Sure, Beau’s smiles can sometimes be a little strange-looking, to say the least—but, Yasha’s found, only when she’s not really feeling the need to. And here and now, her smile is soft and genuine, even just a little bit sad. Yasha’s throat tightens around the lump growing inside of it.

“I mean,” Beau adds, hurriedly, like she’s trying to cover up for her moment of vulnerability, “I didn’t really get you anything, I didn’t—didn’t know we were doing gift exchanges.”

“We’re not,” says Yasha. “It looks nice on you, that’s all. It, um, makes your eyes pop.” That’s what you say, right? Molly had used a line like that once, flirting with an attractive half-elf with green eyes and a green necklace.

Beau laughs, a little. “Thanks,” she says. “Dunno if my eyes need any help with popping any more than they already do, but—thanks.” She tugs the scarf up over her mouth and nose and strikes a pose. “Don’t I look cool?”

Yasha can’t help it. She giggles, just a little—barely even counts as a giggle, just a few breaths of laughter. “You look cool,” she says. “Very cool.”

“Knew it,” says Beau, and she moves like a dream even when she’s just punching at the air. The ends of the scarf flutter behind her like wings.

Yasha does not, disappointingly, spontaneously combust into flames. The Storm Lord also, disappointingly, refuses to send a convenient cloud her way for guidance, or a person-shaped bolt of lightning to cleave into submission. All that happens is Beau moves, kicking at the air and doing flips, and Yasha is rooted to the ground, her heart skipping like Jester towards a bakery.

She hadn’t been the one to court Zuala, is the thing. No, Zuala had pursued her instead, leaving her gifts like fox-skins and crafted nets and knives, and once a bouquet of wildflowers, rare in the lands their tribe had roamed, and kissing her gently under a canopy of green when none of that worked. Now that she’s on the other side of it, it’s—maddening, to say the least.

 _How did you stand this?_ she wants to ask her, and, _Will you be okay with this? What if this love pushes you out of my heart?_

Beau jumps, kicks off a wall, and lands on her feet, light as a feather. The ends of the scarf flutter down after she lands, and she grins as she straightens back out. “This is _great_ ,” she says. Her eyes are bright, her smile blinding, and Yasha’s words all stick in her throat. “Finally, I’m not gonna get _cold_.”

“Wouldn’t want that to happen,” Yasha manages to say. She steps forward, and says, “You, um. It sort of came loose, let me just—”

She winds the scarf around Beau’s neck, so its ends aren’t flapping in the wind, a liability in a fight. Beau’s breath seems almost to pause for a moment, and Yasha can’t help but worry that she might’ve wound the scarf too tight. Then Beau breathes out slowly, licks her lips.

Yasha stares down at her. She could tug her in closer. She could bend down and press her lips to Beau’s. She could wind her hand into Beau’s hair, undo her topknot, bring her through the back up to her room—Fjord can sleep with Molly and Caleb, it’s fine. She could—

The door slams open and Jester shouts, “Beau! Yasha! Come settle a bet for me! Twiggy’s gonna read _Tusk Love_ and we’re betting on how long she can keep up a super-deep voice!” Behind her, Yasha hears Twiggy yell, “I can do it forever!”

Beau breaks away, and says, “Thirty bucks and a donut say she can’t keep it up for longer than a chapter!” She races back inside, and Yasha stands outside the inn, watching her and Jester scamper back to the table, where Twiggy’s standing now. The spell has been broken, the moment has passed, and Yasha doesn’t think she’ll get it back again.

She sighs, and steps back inside.

\--

Molly leaves his eyesore of a hat behind at the inn, thank all the gods. Nott would’ve made a significant dent in the contents of her flask of endless alcohol, if he didn’t. Or at least she would’ve tried to.

She waits up on them while they do—something, she’s not sure. As far as she can see, it’s just talking and gesturing, before Caleb rests a hand on Molly’s shoulder and says something that makes Molly close his eyes and sigh softly, before opening them again. She steps back from the mouth of the alleyway as they come back out, and Molly’s tail lightly taps at her shoulder.

There’s still scars like handprints and thin little hatchmarks along his tail. It must’ve hurt, and badly—Nott had only stepped on Jester’s tail once, by accident, and that had been enough to pull a pained shout and an instinctive spell from her. This is deliberate, and Nott has been tortured enough times to know what deliberate, regular torture looks like on a body, what it does. Sometimes her right ear twinges, a little bit.

“—so after this, what do you want to do?” Caleb’s asking, idly scratching Frumpkin behind the ears.

“Check on the clothes I bought,” says Molly. “Maybe buy some more. I like my dress,” and he twirls around in it, the bottom flaring out as he does so, “but it’s only the one dress, and you know they say variety is the spice of life.”

“Are you gonna buy more hats?” Nott asks, tremulously.

Molly shakes his head, mimes pushing and adjusting the hat around his horns and pouts exaggeratedly. Nott breathes a sigh of relief, and puts her flask back under her cloak. Then she quickly dodges around a young human girl with slightly-pointed ears pointing a toy sword out, and has to jump behind Molly as a half-elf woman in blue runs after the little girl.

And—is that a bear trailing after her?

Frumpkin meows unhappily. Caleb scratches him behind his ears, and squints after the bear. “Apparently the festival attracts all sorts,” he says, before they set off again.

It’s much, _much_ harder to get to the apartment than it had been before, now that the festival has really gotten going. Nott almost gets kicked a couple of times by very enthusiastic dancers, and eventually she gives up and just scampers up onto Caleb’s back, Frumpkin hopping over into Molly’s arms instead. This way’s easier, she finds, when they’re in a crowded place—Caleb has a good memory for directions, and Nott’s got sharper eyes. Together they are _unstoppable_.

Molly holds out an arm and Caleb stops in his tracks, as a tortle and his bagpipes lead a procession past them.

Yeah, scratch the unstoppable part.

“Nott, you’ve been there before,” says Caleb, as what Nott is pretty sure is a float like the one she, Beau, and Jester saw before _put-put_ s past them. “What do you think we’ll find?”

“Stairs with holes in them,” says Nott. “When I followed Verrin there she dug up a bunch of letters and shit from under a floorboard, so maybe there might still be something there.”

Molly waves a hand, as if to catch their attention, and taps a finger over the hollow of his throat.

Caleb says, “ _Ja,_ what is it, Mollymauk?”

“It’s been a year, right?” Molly says. “Whatever they left behind is probably _very_ well-hidden, if it hasn’t been eaten or stolen.”

“Or maybe it’s being used like a dead drop,” says Nott. “There wasn’t anything in Verrin’s place when I followed her there, but she found a bunch of shit.” She’s following the line of logic now to its conclusion, as all good detectives should, and so she feels satisfied enough with what she’s found to declare, with an air of confidence, “So maybe someone’s using Carr and Kerr’s place as a dead drop too—we just need to find out _who_ and work from there!”

Molly nods, and traces the shape of a blade in the air, one hand scratching Frumpkin behind the ears. It takes Nott a second to realize what he’s saying, and she can’t help but snicker at the pun. Then he pauses, chews somewhat on his lower lip like he’s trying to think over how to translate his next thought into charades, and finally sighs and taps at his throat again.

Caleb says, dutifully, “What is it, Mollymauk?”

“It could just be the Dogs,” says Molly, which, ugh, point. Frumpkin purrs and pushes his nose onto Molly’s cheek, getting another scratch. That cat is a smart, manipulative little bastard. “No reason why they shouldn’t use the place. Apparently they kept it for Carr and Kerr for months until they couldn’t, and even then—from what we’ve found out, no one’s exactly trying to move in.”

“It could also be someone who’s _not_ with the Dogs,” Nott counters.

A tap on the throat and a question from Caleb later, Molly says, “Sure! It could be someone completely unrelated.”

“Going off of how things have gone for us in this town so far,” says Caleb, “I would not be surprised if it turned out to be someone who was related to Rattlesnake, Verrin, both, or _us_.”

Nott considers this carefully. Caleb isn’t wrong. Caleb is rarely wrong, they do keep running into things that are weirdly connected to each other in Lynbroke. Especially Verrin, and she’s connected to Astrid, who’s Caleb’s old friend, and Caleb is theirs, which means that technically, there’s a high chance that whatever they find will be, in some distant way, related to them.

“This town’s shit,” she says.

Molly shoots her a mock-offended pout, his upper lip sticking out as he squints up at her. Frumpkin meows at her, and Nott is pretty sure he’s joining in on the mock-offense.

“Of course you love it, it’s like a city-wide circus,” Nott grumbles.

Molly’s pout drops, a little. For a moment Nott’s worried that she’s—set him off, somehow, pulled up a memory or said a phrase, but his face doesn’t go slack and dead. He just looks away and huffs out a breath, scuffing the toe of his boot against the pavement.

Caleb doesn’t say anything, but he steps just that tiny bit closer to Molly. Frumpkin purrs around Molly’s neck, and it draws a huff out of him, pulls the tension out of his shoulders. Nott reaches over to ruffle his hair, and cackles when he huffily tries to bat her hand away.

“Oh, no,” she says, “you did this to me, you don’t get to tell me not to do it to you!”

Molly very noticeably rolls his eyes. Is it possible to do that if your eyes are just a solid color? Whatever. Seems like he’s got a gift for it.

Frumpkin bats a paw at his cheek, earning a hiss of pain out of him.

The procession passes them by eventually, and they set off again. Nott doesn’t hop down just yet, mostly because—well, she’s missed being tall. Up here on Caleb’s shoulders, she gets to see over people’s heads for once and not get kicked at, and everyone is just too busy with their festival stuff to look too closely at her. Plus, this way, she can see threats before they come.

Caleb says, “We, um. We used to twirl around a pole, when we were younger, during the close of the harvest.”

“Yeah, we had that too,” Nott says absently, “it was nice. Yeza used to trip over himself half the time, trying to spin and twirl around. There are a lot of things he’s good at, but dancing has never been one of them.” Then she pauses and looks over to see Molly’s confused face.

Oh, right, Molly doesn’t know.

Oh, shit, _Molly doesn’t know._

A follow-up thought screeches, _what if he knows Yeza because of the Assembly? What if he’s heard about Veth? What if—_

“Ow, _Nottchen,_ my hair,” says Caleb, wincing, and Nott lets go of his hair. Oh. She’d pulled too hard.

“Shit, sorry, _sorry_ —”

“ _Nein_ , no, it’s fine,” Caleb starts, but Molly’s already taking Frumpkin off his neck and flapping his hand between the two of them. “What? Mollymauk, what do you mean?”

“We’re swapping,” says Molly. “Nott, you can hold my horns, just avoid the jewelry. Caleb, I love your cat, but he’s trying to add new scars to my face, you take him.”

“Oh, Frumpkin, no,” says Caleb, taking Frumpkin off of Molly’s arms at the same time Nott hops over onto Molly’s shoulders. He stumbles somewhat, as if he hadn’t quite expected the sudden weight, but rights himself in time as Nott settles and holds onto his horns, fingers accidentally brushing over the moon charm Jester gave him so long ago. She feels him tensing under her grasp, before relaxing.

She whispers into his ear, “You’re not grumpy. I won’t steal from you.”

Molly pats her knee in reply. She leans down to see him smile, a tiny little thing, then settles back down again as they walk away.

“What do you plan to do for the afternoon?” Caleb asks.

“Well, Fjord and I talked to this lovely fortuneteller, and they said we could swing by their place and ask after local history, have a dinner there,” says Molly. “I was—kinda thinking maybe I’d ask you along. After you get into the library.” He tucks his hands into his pockets, looking at Caleb again, and _there’s_ that little half-smile Caleb’s mouth does when Molly’s talking to him. “It’d be nice to just hear some history from someone who’s _not_ connected to this.”

“Well, um, I don’t know,” starts Caleb.

“It’s a good plan,” says Nott. “Who knows! Maybe you two might learn a little something about each other.” Please confess please confess _please just fucking confess_ because at this point, it’s maddening. It’s insane. How are neither of them _seeing this_?

“Um,” says Caleb, blushing. “Well. Would you like to come along, Nott?”

They are going to need a chaperone, she supposes. Just to make sure that they do this confession thing all properly and shit, and that Molly doesn’t break Caleb’s heart. Or, you know, get stabby out of nowhere.

“Oh, definitely,” she says.


	44. walk from this dark room for the last time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Snow Patrol's "Open Your Eyes".
> 
> just one section tonight, folks! I'm writing for a zine! I am So Excited to get into a zine, this will be my first time ever.

Jester tugs Molly’s hat down to shield her eyes and hide her horns, and says, “Sooo, what were you and Beau doing outside the inn earlier?”

They’re waiting outside the Crownsguard’s barracks, and Yasha’s managed to scrounge up some apple pie and a couple of cups of tea, so Jester’s pretty comfortable right now in the center of the circle. They’ve set up a stage here, she can see that, with the Lawmaster’s tower as its backdrop, but at the moment, no one’s on it. Except maybe a couple of kids play-fighting. Twiggy’s keeping watch on the entrance from a stall selling bouquets, and so far she hasn’t signaled that anything’s gone wrong just yet.

Yasha nibbles on her pie. “We just talked,” she says, but she’s staring down at her pie and blushing faintly.

“What about?” says Jester, with a grin. Her tail does not fling itself loose from around her leg, but it’s a near thing.

“I bought her a scarf,” Yasha says. “It—matched her eyes. And she liked it. And I wanted—” She cuts herself off, then lets out a frustrated noise. “I like her,” she says, “and I want to kiss her.”

“And?” Jester prompts.

“And I don’t know if it’s right,” says Yasha, fiddling with a braid, which is not actually what Jester expected. “I’m still—I still love Zuala. I don’t want to forget her. I loved her in life and I will love her always. And I am—scared, a little bit, that if I let this happen, if I fall for Beau even more, Zuala will be—”

She chokes on her words, and wipes away the tears in her eyes.

“She’ll be gone,” says Yasha.

Oh. Jester feels her heart twist in her chest. What had Yasha said about her tribe and their attitudes towards their marriages? When they married, it was for life.

She reaches her hand out to take Yasha’s, and marvels at how big and warm it is, compared to her own. The callouses are different too, Yasha’s life as a hunter and fighter scarring her hands and knuckles differently from Jester’s hands, decorated with paint and calloused from years of holding pencils and paintbrushes.

“Do you love Zuala?” she asks.

“Yes, of course,” says Yasha.

“Do you like me?” Jester asks.

Yasha blinks, confused. “Well, yes,” she says.

“Molly? Nott? Fjord? Caleb? Caduceus?”

“Yes to all of those,” says Yasha. “I don’t see your point.”

“And you like Beau the most of all of us right now,” says Jester.

Yasha nods, her eyebrows knitting together. “I don’t understand,” she says, plaintively.

“But you still love Zuala and you always will,” says Jester, rubbing her thumb over Yasha’s wrist. Her friend’s pulse beats steadily under the thin, fragile skin. “That’s because your heart is big enough for all of us and Zuala. And if it’s big enough to fit nine people and a magic cat, it’s definitely big enough to fit your crush on Beau and your love for Zuala.”

“I don’t know about that,” says Yasha, gently tugging her hand away from Jester.

“Just because you love someone else too doesn’t mean you forgot her,” says Jester, encouraging. “It’s like when Guinevere and Oskar had to separate halfway through the book and they spent the whole time missing each other even though Guinevere kissed her best friend Johanna a few times and meant it. If Guinevere’s heart could hold both Johanna and Oskar then there’s no reason why yours can’t hold Beau and Zuala. You’re even bigger than Guinevere.”

“Didn’t Johanna marry somebody else, though?” says Yasha, after a moment.

“It was the best example I could think of!” says Jester. “It’s sort of the same anyway. You love Beau, and you still love Zuala and you still want to bring her flowers. There’s nothing wrong with loving two people at once.”

Yasha nods, then pauses and chews on her lower lip. “I just,” she starts, then stops. She runs a hand through her mass of dark hair, makes a frustrated noise as her fingers meet the tangles in it. “I miss her. I don’t want to stop missing her. There is a—a hole in my heart that she left behind, and I’m afraid that if I fill it up I will not think of her anymore.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” says Jester, confidently. “There is always going to be a little bit of your heart that’s reserved just for her, because she was so special to you. You don’t have any holes in your heart, you have us and you have Beau, and even if you did and it filled up you would still think of Zuala, because she was important to you.” She leans forward, and says, “Besides, what do you think she would say to you?”

“She would tell me,” says Yasha, with a sigh, “that my heart has more love in it than even she can carry, and I have to meet friends who can carry some of it too.” She smiles, soft and sad, fiddling with her thumbs. “She was wise, my Zu.”

“So listen to her,” says Jester, tapping the very tip of Yasha’s nose with a gloved finger. Yasha huffs out a chuckle, and mimes biting at it as Jester draws her hand back. “How is it going, anyway?”

“I don’t think Beau knows I’m trying to court her,” says Yasha, her voice less shaky now. “Or just. Signal that I’m attracted to her. Or, um, does she?” She twirls a lock of whitish-hair around her finger. “Is this thing with—with Verrin just, like, her way of saying no?”

“Beau isn’t that mean,” says Jester. “I think maybe she thinks _she_ doesn’t have a chance with _you_.” She winks, and adds, “She likes to talk about you to me sometimes, you know, when we have girl-talks by ourselves in our room.”

“Oh? What does she say?”

 _Do you think Yasha ever looks at me? Like, really looks?_ Beau had said once, looking up at the ceiling, long before Molly had come back into their fold. _‘Cause—well, I really wanna tap that, but at the same time she’s. It’s something else with her. Y’know? But she’s got something on her shoulders, and I don’t know if I’m ready to mess with that._

 _I know,_ Jester had said, and thought about Fjord kissing her. _I know._

“She thinks it might be something else with you,” says Jester, in the here and now. “She _likes you_. She just is scared too.” She looks away, to the barracks, then squints—there’s a figure in a dark cloak, just tucked in out of sight on the rooftop of the barracks. She pats Yasha’s shoulder and nods in the figure’s direction, and Yasha’s hand comes up as if to rest on the hilt of her sword before Jester grabs her wrist and shakes her head.

“They might see,” she says. “We can’t let them know we _know_ they’re there.”

Yasha bites her lower lip, but lowers her hand. “Who even are they?” she asks, quietly. “Do you know?”

“I don’t _know_ , I just saw,” says Jester. “They’re pretty well-hidden, but—should we warn Beau and Fjord? Just in case? I think I have enough for one Sending.”

“Yeah, warn them,” says Yasha, narrowing her eyes towards the rooftop. Then she looks around, her shoulders tensing as if she’s looking for more figures in dark cloaks. “I don’t like this—this being watched.”

“We don’t know if it’s us they’re watching,” says Jester, glancing furtively towards Twiggy, who’s looking over now and frowning at them. “They could be Crownsguard watching for something else! It _is_ a festival, and sometimes bad things happen during a festival.” Hell, they’re using it as cover themselves, she wouldn’t be surprised if somebody had been posted up there to keep an eye out over the square. At least that’s what she tells herself, only—

There’s already a lot of Crownsguard on the ground. Certainly, it could just be another guard up there.

Her hand drops to her holy symbol anyway, hidden underneath her own cloak. Wisps of green, illusory fire swirls around her fingertips, ready to burst into a Sacred Flame if necessary. She hopes it’s not necessary.

Twiggy scurries over and says, quietly, “I saw your hand—is something wrong?”

“There’s something on the roof,” Yasha murmurs.

“No shooting it,” Jester warns, “we can’t let it know we know it’s there.”

Twiggy nods, whispers something to Trixie, and then plops herself down, very obviously trying to play at being casual. Her hand shakes just a little too much, though.

Beau and Fjord come out of the barracks, with Fjord still looking like a haughty elf and Beau’s robe still turned inside-out and her hair down over her shoulder. Jester keeps her spell in hand for as long as she can. When she feels it fizzle out, she summons the magic back up again, making sure to hide her hand underneath her cloak. Her heart beats fast inside her chest, _thud-thud-thudthudthud_.

The figure—doesn’t do anything. Just stays up on the rooftop for a few more seconds before disappearing. If Jester hadn’t seen it, if _Yasha_ hadn’t seen it either, she’d think it some trick her imagination played on her, but well. Yasha saw it.

Fjord ducks behind a stall, hiding in the crowds and behind the colorful fabrics of the tents being put up. Beau takes her robe off and turns it back out, tying her hair back up into her usual topknot. “S’up,” she says. “What’re we looking at?”

“There was something on the barracks’ rooftop,” says Yasha.

“It was _super creepy,_ ” Twiggy says, restlessly tugging on the sticks in her hair, nervous.

“What?” says Beau, whipping around to look up at it.

“It’s not there anymore!” says Jester. “I think. We should get out of here, though, I don’t know anymore if it’s all that safe.” They should maybe get out of town period, but they’ve got too much to do now for Jester to feel comfortable just packing up and leaving. And Molly still needs that diamond dust. The sooner they can get it off Lestra, the better, she decides. She likes this party and she likes quite a few of the people she’s met in town so far, but something about the plots simmering underneath Lynbroke’s facade make her squirm, uncomfortable.

“Maybe it was a Crownsguard,” says Beau, but she doesn’t sound convinced. “I can get up there, take a look.”

“I can come with you,” Yasha offers. “They don’t know what I look like anyway.” The rest of it goes unspoken: Yasha doesn’t look very much like a Xhorhasian should, at least in the guards’ eyes. A lot of the ones they met, when they met in Xhorhas, had been some flavor of non-human, with drow elves being the closest to human that there had been. Yasha is just a little pale, and she’s been with them for long enough that she can _probably_ fake being from around here.

Beau runs her teeth over her lower lip, then sighs just as Fjord walks over, a half-orc again. “Fine,” she says. “Hey, Fjord, did you see anything weird while we were walking around the barracks?”

“Uh, no,” says Fjord, his brow furrowing. He’s very cute when he does that, really, it makes Jester’s heart skip a beat or two. “Why, should I have?”

“There was somebody on the rooftop,” says Jester, “and we don’t know what they were doing there. Maybe they were Crownsguard, though!”

“Why,” says Fjord, “would there be Crownsguard posted on the rooftops? Doesn’t seem like a good use of men, not if there’s nothing important going on and no luminaries showing up to make a big speech.” He nods to the scattered guards around them and says, “There’s plenty of Crownsguard on the ground already. What, exactly, did you three see?”

“Couldn’t tell what it was,” Yasha says, shaking her head, “not from here.”

“But it was wearing something that kept it out of sight,” Twiggy adds.

“We’re heading out to look,” says Beau, “me and Yasha. We’ll keep out of sight, don’t worry about us.”

“Let me come with?” Twiggy asks. “I’m really good at climbing, and I’m _pretty_ sure I have rope in here!”

“Oh, please do,” says Yasha. “There might be traps up there.” And they’re all too used to traps in unexpected places now, that Jester doesn’t even blink at the idea the way she would’ve, a year ago. If the person up there was paranoid enough to keep out of sight, just in case someone looked up and saw them, they would’ve been paranoid enough to leave a nasty surprise behind.

If they’re not still there.

“Be _careful_ ,” says Jester, and for good measure, she pulls a healing potion out of her pocket and presses it into Beau’s hand. “You get into people’s faces a lot, you need this a lot more than I do right now, okay, Beau? You and Twiggy and Yasha take care.”

“We will,” Beau says, and it’s echoed by both Yasha and Twiggy in markedly different tones. Yasha always sounds a little bit tired and worn, but her smile is at least a good attempt at reassuring. Twiggy’s more enthusiastic, her gap-toothed grin a beautiful thing, and Jester just wants to scoop her up and hug her, coo at her cheeks.

Fjord tucks his hands in his pockets, lets out a breath. “All right,” he says, sounding a little worried anyway. “We’ll just, uh—”

“Enjoy the festival!” says Jester, hooking her arm around Fjord’s elbow. “Fjord and I will just check out what the festival has to offer, and we’ll meet back up with you guys right here when you’re done.” She grins up at Fjord, who chuckles a little as she leans against him, straightening up like a gentleman. “Come on, Fjord!”

They turn away from Beau and Yasha and Twiggy, towards a stall in a street branching out from the town’s center, selling tarts and rolls and baguettes.

Jester looks back to see them melting in the crowd. She looks up at the rooftops.

The figure isn’t there anymore, but for half a heartbeat she finds herself _wondering_.


	45. dead hearts are everywhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Stars' "Dead Hearts"!
> 
> no chapter next week, because I got sucked into another fandom and I have to build my buffer back up to acceptable levels, welp. incidentally, and for no reason at all, any of you watch Jane the Virgin because I Have Some Ideas. we'll be back on April 17! in the meantime, please Mighty Nein please do not pull another cliffhanger like the last last week bc I am a tiny fic writer frantically trying to incorporate as many Interesting Things as you can throw me and I am rapidly running out of room.

The door swings open, creaking as it goes. It’s loud enough that Molly reflexively looks around, checking to see if anyone’s around to have heard it before he even thinks of the possibility. Which is disturbing, sort of, when he thinks about how he got there.

So he doesn’t. He shivers, shoves it down, and moves on, following behind Nott and Caleb and shutting the door behind himself. He very carefully steps around the more rotted-looking floorboards—wouldn’t do to step on one of them and find out if there’s something waiting for him down below.

He’ll give this place this much: it might be cramped, it might be long-rotted away, but it’s not cold stone walls. There’s even a door to the side before the staircase, and two more beyond, and just for the sake of thoroughness, he tries the doorknob on the first one.

It falls away in his hand. The door creaks open by itself, ominously.

Frumpkin skips inside first, his eyes beginning to glow with arcane light. A moment later, Caleb’s hand drops onto Molly’s shoulder. Molly tenses for a second, his heart crawling into his throat out of fear, before he relaxes. _It’s Caleb, it’s just Caleb,_ he tells himself, _he won’t hurt you._

It’s maybe the first thing he’s told himself in a while that he really believes without having to repeat. He reaches up his tattooed hand to lay gently on Caleb’s, and leans into his side.

Nott squeezes in between them, her crossbow pointed downward.

“There is nothing here,” says Caleb, after a moment. “Just rotted wood and rotted food—this was a store once, but it has been a very long time since anyone was here.” He wrinkles his nose, and says, “Oh, there’s a big fat rat in here.”

Nott whistles lowly. “A _snack_ ,” she says, and Molly opens his mouth to give her shit about it before the spell kicks in, choking off his words.

It had been—It was something the Assembly did, when someone they were turning into a corpse soldier fought back too much. Or just talked too much. Or just _was_ too much, like Molly had been whenever he was more lucid. They took the poor bastard’s voice away, made it so that the only time the corpse soldiers had any was when they were being asked to speak by their masters.

And, god, they could make them, they could make _him_ say anything.

It’s shitty. This whole situation is shitty, and it’s not going to be sustainable, not for very long. Fucking bastards at the Assembly didn’t want their toys to regain any semblance of independence, didn’t want them stepping out in the real world again. And that’s not taking into account Astrid and her grudge against a dead man, whose body Molly had been unlucky enough to inhabit.

Well. Fuck them, and fuck her. He’s here now, he’s got freedom in his grasp, and Caleb is shuddering back into his body beside Molly with a soft gasp.

“Frumpkin saw a delicious-looking rat,” he explains.

Nott _growls_.

Two minutes later, Frumpkin reappears, with a dead rat in his mouth, tail swaying triumphantly. Molly snorts out a laugh as the cat drops the carcass at Caleb’s feet and sits back onto his haunches.

“You are a ridiculous little creature,” Caleb sighs, picking his cat up and rubbing the top of Frumpkin’s furry little head. The cat purrs, as Nott snatches up the rat’s corpse and stuffs it somewhere.

It’s the same through the next two doors on this floor: nothing but dust and the remnants of the lives that used to be here. Molly steps through the last doorway himself, just to take a peek, and finds nothing but cockroaches and some silver and copper pieces that had been stashed away somewhere safe. Those he pockets with only a twinge of guilt—whoever had lived and worked here is long gone. It’d be a shame to waste the money.

They go upstairs. The first apartment—

“I could’ve sworn there was something here,” says Nott, staring at an empty space under the floorboards. She whips around and says, “There were papers here! I swear, they were!”

“We believe you,” says Caleb. “But it has been some time since you stalked Verrin here, and you said she handled them. She may very well have come back and taken them herself.”

 _or her frend did,_ Molly writes in his notebook. _if the paypers wer adresd to her then she wud hav been told to come heer to pik them up they cal it a ded drop._ Which isn’t a comforting thought, and judging by the way Caleb’s lips press into a thin line and Nott’s eyes dart to the door, they had pretty much the same thought too.

“I don’t think they described us, just mentioned what we called ourselves,” Nott ventures, after a moment. “Besides, there’s plenty of other groups like us around.”

It’s a desperate grasp at straws, and they all know it. Caleb says, “We are very distinct even from other adventurers, though. The Mighty Nein is a name that comes with—with _deeds_ that will be remembered, now.”

And isn’t that strange, because when Molly had died, they were just a group of assholes trying to get their friends back and failing miserably in the attempt. Now—well, it’s not like the crowds part for them, but the fact that Yonnah had blustered and bluffed about how unafraid he was of a group of mercenaries with loyalties so uncertain that they’d crossed into Xhorhas…

That says something. That means _attention_ , and not just the kind of attention that means they’ll be treated better than before. A name with even a small amount of fame to it means people like Yonnah and Astrid and Trent fucking Ikithon and their ilk in the Assembly start taking an interest.

And Ikithon had been so interested in Yasha, too.

Molly shivers, and writes, _they dont kno wer ~~heer~~ here tho or els wed be in mor troubel than were alredy in._ But they’re coming far too close for Molly’s comfort. If it were all up to him he’d call this town a wash and move the fuck on.

But it’s not up to him, and he knows his friends pretty damn well even now. They’re in too deep, they’re not going to get out.

Things were so much easier in the circus.

“How long do you think that will last?” Caleb asks, and Molly breathes out a sigh of relief as the spell loosens its hold on his throat.

“A few more days, give or take,” Molly says. “Hopefully by the time they figure out we were here, we’ll be long gone by then. I don’t exactly trust Verrin all that much, but I do trust that she hasn’t got any reason to go blabbing to the Crownsguard.” After all, it’d be her own neck on the line along with the rest, and Molly might not know much about her, but he’s pretty sure she’s got some semblance of a self-preservation instinct. Probably. “Come on, this apartment’s a wash, let’s see what the others have.”

The next one is slightly less bare than the other—there’s a table near the window and a vase on top of it, covered in dust, and some books scattered here and there, a mattress in the center of the living room that’s not quite so dusty as the rest of the apartment. It’s so absurd that Molly can’t help a dark little chuckle, because really, a vase? He wonders what’s in it that no one’s deigned to take it.

Sure enough, Nott takes a look, makes a face, and says, “Somebody’s in here.”

This town has some weird criminals. In any other town that vase would’ve been flogged off by now, and never mind what or who’s in it. Then again, maybe the criminals who _were_ using this apartment had some sentiment attached to the vase and the ashes in it.

“Hey, there’s something else in here—”

Or maybe not.

Caleb gets there first, a book in hand as he peers into the vase, and the ashes within. “Oh,” he says, frowning. “Oh, _ja_ , someone left something in here. It—looks like a letter?” He glances up at Nott and says, “Ronwell didn’t say anything about this, when Yasha and I spoke to him.”

Molly pats Caleb’s side, then grabs Nott’s sleeve and tugs her and Caleb away from the table. Things left in people’s ashes are most likely to be valuable, and gods know what might be waiting for them if they try to pluck it from the ashes. As soon as they’re a safe distance away, he lets go of their sleeves and spins his hands in arcane-looking circles.

“I’m already on it,” says Nott, holding her hand out and murmuring a few words. Her ethereal green Mage Hand materializes in front of her, and drifts over to the vase.

It plucks the paper out from the ashes with evident resistance. A second later, Nott cocks her head.

“Did you hear—” she starts, just as a green gas seeps out from the table, too fast for even Nott to dodge in time. Molly sucks in his last fresh breath of air, holds it, and yanks both Nott and Caleb back towards the door, slamming it shut before the gas can escape and fill the corridor.

“What was that?” Caleb asks, as Molly finally lets out the breath he’s holding.

“I don’t _know_ ,” says Molly. “Nott, you okay? Nott?”

“Mmf,” says Nott, and immediately flops onto Molly’s leg, as if her own can barely hold her up. “‘Leb?” she mumbles, her hand trembling as she reaches for Caleb. “Wh’pened?”

“ _Scheiße,_ ” Caleb says.

\--

Twiggy’s first up on the rooftop, tossed— _tossed_ , what fun!—by Yasha and rolling to stabilize herself, her feet skidding to a stop across the stone. She can’t help an adrenaline-drunk laugh as she gets to her feet, looking around for a dark cloak or something that could’ve been left behind by Jester and Yasha’s dark-cloaked figure.

—there’s remnants of food behind the chimney, like whoever had been there had left in a hurry. Twiggy scurries over and bends down, picking up a piece of bread.

Trixie pokes his head out of her jacket and chirps out a question.

“No, this is evidence,” says Twiggy. “I’m sorry, Trix, but you can’t eat evidence.” She sets the bread down gently, and scratches Trixie behind the ears. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you some really tasty bread later.”

Trixie chirps his begrudging assent to this compromise. She laughs and kisses the top of his furry little head. Trixie chitters again and burrows back into her jacket, just as she hears Beau’s light steps, followed by Yasha’s heavier footfalls.

“Hey, guys!” she calls, spinning around to wave the bread at them. “I found something really interesting.”

“Is that bread?” says Beau, coming up to take the bread off her hands. She gives it a sniff, then makes a face. “Ah, fuck, this bread’s stale.” She pauses, then looks out at the stalls littering the town center, her brow furrowing in thought. “Who’d bring stale bread when there’s a bakery around?”

“Someone who can’t afford to be seen,” says Yasha.

“It could be a Crownsguard keeping an eye on shit from above,” says Beau, but she doesn’t sound too convinced by it. Yasha snorts in answer and shakes her head, just as unconvinced. Which is kinda weird, because it is a logical conclusion—if you wanted to keep an eye on things, the barracks’ rooftop seems like a really good vantage point.

But at the same time, it’s pretty understandable. From what Twiggy’s been told, her friends just keep stumbling onto links to one big, bad thing after another. Maybe it’s something about this town, sucking people in deeper into its mysteries.

Ooh, she does love mysteries!

“Did you see anything else?” Beau asks. “Like whatever that figure was?”

“Nope, just the food,” says Twiggy. “It got left behind, so whoever must’ve been here probably left in a big hurry.”

“Maybe they noticed us,” says Yasha, dismayed, her eyes scanning the nearby rooftops as if searching for that same dark figure.

“If they did, we’d be in way more trouble than we are right now,” says Beau, but she rocks back and forth on her heels, blue eyes darting around too. “But just in case we missed anything, let’s just do a little sweep. And keep out of sight from anybody who happens to look up.”

A sweep!

Twiggy barely manages to keep herself from bouncing on her heels out of excitement through sheer force of will. She coughs, tries to school her expression into a calm, Professional look, and says, “Good plan! I’ll take this side over here.” She waves her hand over the food, the chimney, and the tiles of the barracks’ rooftop.

“I’ll take the back,” says Yasha, nodding to the rooftop’s trap door. “Make sure no one’s coming up to investigate. And—who knows, maybe they were Crownsguard after all and left that way. Or at least they could disguise themselves as Crownsguard.”

Not good. Definitely not good, considering just how many Crownsguard are around this festival. Twiggy twists a lock of hair around her finger and tugs nervously, because they’re _very_ close to the Crownsguard right now. They’re right on top of their barracks. They could get caught at any moment, and then things could very easily go very badly from there.

It’s a pretty good reminder for her to take it stealthily and slowly, once she, Beau and Yasha have scattered across the rooftop, searching for clues. She creeps low to the tiles, tapping them lightly to see if any of them might jar loose. Trixie barely makes a sound as he skitters up to the very tip of the chimney and peers down.

Tap, tap, tap—

One of the tiles loosens under her tapping, and there’s nothing about it that strikes her as particularly dangerous. She takes her penknife out from her belt and, with her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth, starts working the tile loose. Chips slowly come loose as the tile loosens further, until she gives it a tug and finds it springing into her hand with ease.

Underneath the tile are ripped up scraps of paper, with legible letters still scratched into the surface. It’s hard to tell which end is connected to which here and now, but maybe if Twiggy hands this over to Jester and Nott, they might be able to tell. They’re the smartest and bravest people she knows.

She catches sight of part of a name, and squints. “Leth,” she reads out loud. “Huh. I wonder who this Leth person is.”

Trixie’s tail smacks lightly against her cheek, and she looks up from the scraps, carefully stowing them away in her pocket and making sure that they’re all there. She looks back down at the tile in her hand, then at Trixie. “Did you see something?” she asks.

Trixie chitters, his tail waving towards the stage and the stands and, more importantly, the Crownsguard casually strolling around.

“I think those are helmets, not giant acorns,” says Twiggy after a moment, trying to jam the tile back into place. “But you’re not wrong, from this distance, they do look like giant acorns, don’t they?”

Trixie nods, and chirps back as she wedges the tile back where she found it. Hopefully no one will come up here and figure out it’s looser than it should be. Or that even if they do, they chalk it up to weather or something.

“Yeah, the design’s pretty unfair to hungry squirrels, I know,” says Twiggy, holding her hand out so Trixie can hop up onto it. “I don’t really have any say in the design, though, or we’d have helmets that looked less like acorns around by now. I _am_ going to make sure that after this you’re a lot less hungry, though. I promise, you’re gonna have all the bread you want.”

“Hello,” comes a light voice behind her, and Twiggy cranes her neck upward to see Yasha, crouching low over her. “Did you find something?”

“Yep!” says Twiggy. “Someone ripped up a paper and stuffed it under a tile. You?”

“Nothing,” says Yasha, shaking her head. “There wasn’t much to find. I don’t think they were carrying a whole lot, really—they left food behind, that says they left in a hurry, but that’s it. At least for me, anyway.”

“They ripped a piece of paper up too,” Twiggy says. “I found a loose tile and pried it loose and there were bits of paper with ink on them that looked like _letters_ , only they were torn up into itty-bitty pieces.” She draws a piece out of her pocket to show her, and says, “See?”

Yasha squints at it, and tilts her head to the side as she reads what little is still on the paper. Then her lips press into a thin line, and rage flickers behind her mismatched eyes before she shuts them, breathing in and out. “We should go get Beau,” she says.

As if on cue, Beau makes her way over to them, her jaw set. “I found something,” she says, holding up a torn piece of dark, bloodstained fabric. “Got caught on a loose nail. Whoever they were, they were running like hell.”

“I know who they’re working for,” says Yasha.

“Who?” says Twiggy.

“The Assembly,” says Yasha, and she holds the paper out for Beau to take and scan over.

“ _Fuck me,_ ” says Beau, with venom. “Where’s the rest of this?”

“It’s in my pockets, but I’m a little lost,” says Twiggy, frowning. “What are we talking about?”

“People worse than Sir Cadigan,” says Beau, and oh. Oh, _shit_. “Way, way worse.”


	46. found some peace inside yourself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from The Mountain Goats’ “Never Quite Free”.
> 
> song in text is “For the Dancing and the Dreaming” from the How To Train Your Dragon II soundtrack. thanks to the CritRole fic writers discord server for the suggestion!

“What just happened?” Caleb asks, as soon as he’s sure it’s safe to breathe at all.

“We sprung a nasty surprise is what happened,” Molly says, gathering Nott up into his arms. “Should we even try to go in there? Because I’m thinking whatever we can find isn’t worth inhaling a lungful of—whatever that was.” He shifts his grip, holding Nott protectively as if holding a small child, and for a moment Caleb’s not standing in a corridor in an abandoned apartment building, but standing on a shore and watching Molly gently speak to a little dwarven girl. “You okay, Nott?” Molly says now, his brow creasing with worry, and the illusion shatters.

Nott gives the smallest of nods. Her color is still good, that’s good, she just—isn’t moving well. That’s not good. Whatever that gas was, it’s taken their best, most effective member out, which leaves Caleb and an unarmed Mollymauk.

Those are not good odds for if anything happens that they’ll need to fight off.

“We’ve come far enough,” says Caleb, trying to summon up a courage he doesn’t have. “We can go a little farther.”

Nott makes an agreeing noise, her hand vaguely and weakly flapping at Molly’s cheek.

Molly doesn’t say anything, just breathes out and shakes his head. He adjusts his grip on Nott very pointedly, nodding towards the stairway.

“What do you mean?” Caleb asks.

“We’re down our rogue,” says Molly. “We can come back later, it’s not like anyone’s going to come sniffing around—”

“ _Who’s there?_ ” someone calls out from downstairs, their voice muffled by the distance and the wood. Caleb freezes in place, his mind playing out what might happen if they get caught by the Crownsguard here in Lynbroke: a purple tiefling that the Assembly wants badly, and a wizard on the run that Ikithon is going to want very, very dead _especially_ if he finds out what the Nein did in Xhorhas, and a little goblin girl? They don’t stand a chance. They have to stay _hidden_.

He looks at Molly, and sees that the same calculations have run through his head as well. With a nod, the both of them yank the door back open and slam it closed, and Caleb can’t help a relieved sigh—the gas is fast-acting, but it’s fast-dissipating too, which is good, because they have to do this. And quickly.

Molly passes Nott off to him and races to look out the window. He spins back around, coat and dress flaring out and catching the light in such a way that for a moment, even in the midst of life and death, Caleb’s breath _still_ catches in his throat.

Nott makes a noise into Caleb’s shirt that he decides to ignore. She doesn’t sound distressed, not exactly, just vaguely annoyed, and Caleb has an idea what she’s annoyed about.

Molly shakes his head, holds up four fingers—four people, at least, below the window who’ll notice if three people, or even just the one if Nott and Caleb cast Invisibility on themselves. If Nott can even cast in her state.

Honestly, Caleb doubts it.

“—tellin’ you, Joe, there’s something that doesn’t want us here,” someone says, and Caleb almost wants to laugh. It’s those same idiots from outside the warehouse again. He really doesn’t want to have to blow one of his stronger spells on modifying their memories again, not when there’s more problems to worry about. “Like ghosts or some shit!”

“Ghosts don’t trigger traps!” Griff retorts, sounding exasperated with his friend again. Apparently that’s just the way of things for this duo, which explains a lot about their encounter. “You idiot, you’ve been reading too much ghost stories.”

Molly covers his mouth to suppress a laugh. At least someone finds this funny, Caleb’s a little too preoccupied with scanning the room for anything an adult human, an adult tiefling, and an adult halfling-turned-probably adult goblin can hide in. His eyes catch on a door just nearby.

He looks at Molly, shifts his grip on Nott, and whispers, “We’re hiding in the closet.”

Molly’s eyebrows creep towards his hairline, but he doesn’t argue beyond that. His hand falls to his hip for a moment, curling around thin air, before he blinks and shakes his head.

“Come with me,” says Caleb, holding out a hand, and Molly takes it. He pulls Molly aside, opens the closet door, then yanks him inside, shutting the door and hardly daring to even breathe.

Molly’s hand finds his once more, squeezes tight. Caleb turns to look at him, and the light is dim enough that his Stone’s magic turns the darkness around them into greyscale daylight. Molly is a clash of hues and shades and patterns under this magic, but his eyes are wide with a familiar fear. His shoulders shake, and his grip is almost painfully tight.

For a moment Caleb considers simply—making it go away. He could order him not to feel any fear. He could Suggest that Molly keep calm. All that would cost him is Molly’s smile, Molly’s trust, and he would understand, wouldn’t he? That Caleb had to, so they could all three be safe and sound?

The door to the apartment creaks open. Griff’s voice says, “Aw, fuck, this place gives me the creeps. We have to get out of here. Like, _right now_. I’m sure as shit not staying anywhere that’s fuckin’ _haunted_.”

No, he can’t. They’d hear him, they’re too close now for Caleb to be able to safely cast anything more powerful than a cantrip. And the cost of such an action is not one Caleb can pay, now. Months ago, perhaps—when they were two strangers thrown together by chance, or when they were two people growing closer in friendship, he would have. But Molly’s smile is—

It’s one of the brightest things in Caleb’s life, right now. Maybe _the_ brightest thing, even now, despite everything that’s happened.

And he’s weak, and he’s selfish. He doesn’t want to lose that, or Molly’s good opinion. Somehow he’s kept it, even after laying his past bare for Molly to judge. Somehow he hasn’t been pushed away, like he ought to be, like he deserves to be. Somehow he’s still here basking in Molly’s warmth beside him, somehow he’s allowed to do this: take his hand and squeeze it gently, reassuring and warm. _I am real, I am right here._

Molly shifts closer to him, his hand slipping out of Caleb’s fingers and resting on his arm, near where Nott is weakly holding on, like he wants to stay in contact with him at all times. Caleb’s breath catches in his throat once more, and his heartbeat thumps loudly against the insides of his chest, an already-loud drumbeat magnified in volume by their close proximity.

And then Nott flaps her own hand out and gently, if feebly, rests it on top of Molly’s.

The tension seems to leak out of Molly’s shoulders, then. He burrows in closer to Caleb, his hand gripping Caleb’s arm and being loosely held by Nott. He makes a soft, barely audible, clearly upset noise, and hides his face in Caleb’s shoulder, inhaling, exhaling, holding on to him like he may slip away if Molly doesn’t stay as close to him as possible, trembling. Caleb should maybe be more concerned that Molly is in his space, pressed as close to him as possible with Nott in the middle of them.

...Molly isn’t a stranger to enclosed spaces, is he. He’d said as much to Caleb before, lying back in bed and staring up at the wooden ceiling. Now he’s in another one, and Caleb is the one who put him there. No wonder he’s holding him and Nott like he’s scared they might slip away—gods only know _what_ he saw in the darkness before, although Caleb fancies he has some idea what kind of nightmares would scar Molly like this.

Hesitantly, he presses a kiss to the very top of Molly’s forehead, the way Molly did for him months ago, a lifetime ago, in the mines of Alfield. This much comfort, he can grant him. This much, he can allow himself to have.

His hand drifts back up to press against Molly’s cheek, far gentler than the slap that snapped him out of his funk back in Alfield. Molly breathes out slowly, and his eyes, half-lidded and in greyscale, stay on Caleb’s face, Caleb’s eyes, and for one fleeting moment Caleb wants to press another kiss, this time to his lips, to his neck, to his collarbone.

Nott coughs into Caleb’s coat. Muffled as the sound is by the fabric, it does its job in snapping Caleb out of his thoughts, and Molly seems to blink awake too.

“Did you hear something?” hisses Griff.

“For fuck’s sake,” Joe groans. “Stop _hearing_ things and get to work.”

“No, it was in the closet, I swear, I _swear_ there was something there—”

Molly immediately mimes what looks like an arcane gesture, and Caleb is lost on its meaning for a moment before he realizes: “ _Ja. Ja,_ I can do that.”

The assertion wins him a small smile. It’s a paltry thing, really, but warmth blooms like a flower in spring in the middle of Caleb’s chest at the sight of it. He opens the door just a crack, just enough to peek through and see the two smugglers from the warehouse arguing.

“—can’t be anywhere in here, anyway!” Griff’s saying. “This job’s a bust, now let’s get the fuck out before something gets us.”

“All you’re doing is bitching!” Joe retorts. “Bitching’s not gonna help us find that shit the boss said was here! And what do you think he’ll do to either of us if we tell him we fucked up again?”

“I don’t _care_ about the boss, I just wanna get out of here!” Griff gestures expansively around himself, as if to indicate the rotting floorboards, the dust, the empty walls, the peeling paint. “This doesn’t strike you as fucking creepy at all?”

Caleb very discreetly passes Nott off to Molly, and puts a finger to his lips as two globules of light float slowly out of their closet.

“Just ‘cause you got something right for once in your miserable life—”

Caleb pulls a bit of fleece out of his coat pockets and traces a few arcane circles in the air. The globules of light spin slowly around the two men, and combine into a disembodied head, too rotten and decomposed to even tell what its species was, a spine trailing from its neck.

When Bren had been younger, his father taught him to throw his voice. Caleb does it now, moaning into the wind as he traces a shape in the air, and the jaw hangs loose. Strips of flesh slough off of the skull, just to add to the effect.

Joe sets his jaw, pulls a knife out and points it at the skull. “Show yourself!” he shouts. “I’m not fucking scared of you! Whoever the fuck you are!”

“I am!” says Griff, a puddle beginning to form under his shoes. “And we’re fucking leaving!” He grabs hold of Joe’s elbow and yanks hard with a scream, picking him up over his head. As his smuggling partner protests, Griff kicks the door open and bolts from the apartment, leaving a cackling skull, a puddle of piss, and his dignity behind.

Molly, looking over Caleb’s shoulder, breaks into a fit of laughter. He topples into Caleb’s back, and Nott lets loose an undignified curse as the three of them spill out from the closet door.

“Everyone off,” Caleb gasps, his breath coming short because he is, in fact, getting crushed. His hand flails out, and the sleeve catches on a loose nail. “ _Was ist_ —”

He tugs. The nail comes loose, and the floorboard, cracked and half-rotted already, splinters into pieces. Underneath it is—a ledger, and a smaller notebook, and a pouch with silver inside.

For a long moment, no one moves.

Then Caleb says, “Ah. Well. I think we found something.”

\--

“Hey, Fjord?”

“Yeah, Jes?” says Fjord, absently picking up bits of armor being sold in a stall. Most seem more decorative than anything, made of weaker material than Fjord’s comfortable with, but there’s a couple here and there that look promising. That sturdy-looking pauldron over there for example—it’s light enough that he could buy it and replace his old one.

“Which shoes do you think I’d look really good in?” says Jester, and Fjord turns to see her with a mismatched pair of shoes. On her left foot is a predominantly red boot with stripes of every color crisscrossing every inch of it, and on her right is a flat, closed-toe blue shoe, like he’d see on a doll behind a store’s glass, with a sunflower securely glued onto the top of it.

She spins in place, as if to show off, but the differing heights of the shoes mean that her landing is—not all that impressive. Fjord rushes forward, catching her before she topples onto the ground, and says, “Whoa, Jester, careful!”

She laughs, high and sweet, even as she’s fallen onto his breastplate. The sound makes his cheeks heat, just a little bit. “Ooh, _Fjord_ ,” she says, teasing, and straightens back up. “You still didn’t answer my question, though!”

“I mean, I guess they both look good,” says Fjord, scratching the back of his neck and looking at her feet.

“But which one looks _better_?” she presses.

Well, that’s something of a tricky question. Fjord hasn’t really paid a lot of attention to shoes before, beyond asking after their durability. Both shoes look pretty fancy to him, the kind that draw attention with every step, but—well, in his unqualified opinion, the boot’s a lot more in-your-face, obnoxiously loud and taking up space. Seems more suited to Molly than Jester.

“The little blue one with the sunflower,” he hedges. “Goes pretty well with—all of you.”

Jester preens. “Great!” she says. “I’ll give Molly the other pair, he’ll be really happy to get a new pair of shoes.” She steps closer to whisper, “Don’t tell him, but his old shoes are starting to smell.”

Probably there’s a horrific and disturbing reason for that. There has been a lot of horrific and disturbing things coming out of his friends lately, Fjord is not going to ask for any more details than necessary. “I’ll spare his feelings,” he says, as Jester hops around on one foot slipping off the boot and shoving on the blue shoe’s partner. This one’s yellow, with a blue flower glued on top in place of the sunflower.

“How do I look now?” she asks, twirling with a delighted laugh. The little trinkets hanging off of the hat she’s borrowed off Molly jingle against each other as she spins, her cloak and dress flaring out under her.

Fjord’s breath catches in his throat, at the sound of her laughter, at the bright smile on her face. “You look amazing,” he manages, after a moment spent trying to find the right words. “Like, uh—like a little doll in one of those shops, y’know?”

“My mom got me one of those dolls once,” says Jester. “Ooh, we should visit her again someday! I can ask her when she’s going to sing and then we can have Caleb teleport us all there, and—oh, Molly’s never heard her sing before! He’d love it!”

Right, Molly hadn’t been there the first time. Fjord briefly imagines Molly meeting Marion—they _would_ get along, although he imagines Molly might be his usual slightly inappropriate self at first. Probably? He’s harder to predict now.

“And I’d bet she’d love my new shoes too,” Jester continues, sticking her foot out with a grin. “Test them out with me, Fjord?”

“How?” says Fjord, coming out of his thoughts.

“Dance with me!” says Jester, taking his hand.

Fjord laughs, and says, “Needs a bit of music, though, wouldn’t you say?”

“Ooh, you’re _right_ ,” says Jester. She snaps her fingers, murmurs a few words, and then when she next opens her mouth, her voice booms out across the square: “Hey! _Hey!_ Someone play some music over here!” She pauses a moment, as everyone turns to stare at her and Fjord in shock, then calls again, “I’ll pay five gold for a band to play some music over here!”

Fjord inches closer to Jester as chaos breaks out around them. She snaps her fingers, and says, in a more normal voice, “Do you think that worked?”

“Uh,” says Fjord, looking around frantically. He can see that some of the Crownsguard are looking over now, too, and his fingers flex. He could summon the falchion at a moment’s notice, he just—hopes he doesn’t need to.

The Crownsguard squint at them for a moment, then look away. Fjord breathes a sigh of relief, just as someone near the stage calls, “Here, here, we’re musicians! Play anything you like, just say the words!”

“That’s _great_ ,” says Jester, pulling Fjord away from the stalls and back towards the open space in front of the stage.

A dark-haired, dark blue tiefling waves a bow at them, before she holds a fiddle to her neck and draws the bow across it, as if testing the tune. Beside her are a bronze dragonborn with a flute, an androgynous half-elf with a tambourine, and a dwarf with his two top buttons half-undone and a lute that he’s tuning.

“Hi,” says the tiefling, “you the lady who asked for a band?” Her eyes dart between Fjord and Jester, as if assessing them, before she grins, a little impishly. “I’m Rosie, and these are my mates. What will we be playing for you good folks—and the rest of you lot!—today, then?”

“Do you know the song about the Ruby of the Sea?” Jester asks, which is—yeah, Fjord supposes he should’ve expected that.

“Ah, no,” says the dwarf. “Ain’t ever heard that one.”

“The courtesan in Nicodranas, dumbfuck,” says the half-elf, smacking the dwarf. “She’s got a song about her and everything—”

“It’s in Infernal,” the dragonborn contributes. “Which most of us don’t know ‘cept Rosie here.”

“And I don’t know the song either,” Rosie adds, scratching the back of her neck with the tip of her bow. “Sorry about that, sweetheart.”

Jester seems to deflate, visibly. “Oh,” she says, puffing back up, “oh, how about, um—what’s the title, it’s about this couple, and they’re willing to sail over savage seas and shit if only she’ll marry him?”

“Do you know ‘For the Dancing and the Dreaming’?” Fjord asks, and Jester smacks her palm with a delighted _yes!_

“Matter of fact we do!” says Rosie, and starts up a cheery little tune. “Fellas! Get on with it!” she shouts to her friends, and they scramble to obey, the half-elf shaking their tambourine.

Jester laughs, and pulls Fjord with her away from the band.

It’s been a long, long time since Fjord’s heard this song, even longer since he danced to it. The last time, he’d been pushed by Sabien, who’d said he needed to get to know a woman before he left the port forever, and she had been—nice. Understanding, even, in the night. But the song hadn’t sounded right in the air between them, then.

The song starts slow, a fiddle and a flute twining their melodies together. Jester takes his hand, and says, “Do you know how to dance to this song?”

“Little bit,” says Fjord, as the flute starts to speed up, the fiddle growing more joyous as the tambourine starts up. The lute joins in soon enough, providing a counter-melody in step with the fiddle. “We danced to this once, me and—a couple of crew members with a few girls, ‘fore we set out on a voyage to Stilben.”

“Oh,” says Jester, her mouth twisting downward. “What was it like?” she asks, as if trying to mask something.

“Didn’t really feel right,” says Fjord, twirling Jester around as the song steps up its tempo. “I think it was ‘cause I was kinda tipsy, didn’t know where to put my feet, and she was trying her best not to laugh. She was kind like that.”

“But you know where to put your feet now?” Jester asks, just as the instruments slow and Rosie sings, _I’ll swim and sail on savage seas, with ne’er a fear of drowning_.

“Yeah, I got real good at that,” says Fjord, doing a jaunty little shuffle in time with the music to get Jester to laugh. _And gladly ride the waves of life, if you will marry me,_ the song continues, pulling in dancers from all over the circle to join in on the fun. “Never heard this song again before today, though.”

“So why did you ask for it?” Jester asks, as they spin together, one more couple in a crowd of dancers.

_No scorching sun nor freezing cold would stop me on my journey—_

“Seemed a good time for it,” says Fjord, as the two of them twirl amongst the other dancers. They step away from each other for a moment, never looking away and never taking their hands off each other. “I know plenty of sea shanties, couple of jigs my old crewmate Harlaw would teach me, but this one’s a good fit for a festival, yeah?”

“It’s very romantic, yeah!” says Jester, with a laugh. She spins into his arms, and they sway together for only a moment before she turns again, her hands grabbing onto his torso. Before he knows it, she’s lifted him off his feet with a giggle.

Right, Jester is maybe the second strongest of all of them. He can’t stop a silly smile from creeping onto his face, as she spins him around and sets him back down, in time for Rosie to sing, _And love me for eternity!_

_My dearest one, my darling dear, your mighty words astound me,_ comes another, deeper voice, the half-elf from what Fjord can see. He sets one hand back on Jester’s shoulder and the other on the small of her back, feels her shiver and sees her smile as he guides her steps. _But I’ve no need of mighty deeds when I feel your arms around me—_

Fjord raises his arm, lets Jester spin till her back meets his chest. They sway together like that, his arms crossed over her torso, and she says, “My mama used to sing this song to me so I’d go to sleep. She said my dad taught it to her.”

Her dad, who—could be the Gentleman, apparently. Fjord tries to picture it, the calm, smirking crime lord dancing with Marion under festival lights. It’s—not happening.

“We’ll go back to her,” Fjord promises, and Jester beams up at him. She’s so _close_ , her body warm against him, even through his breastplate. Her new shoes have dust and dirt on them from the dancing, and her eyes are sparkling like starlight. “Tell her about everything that’s happened since the last time we met up with her. She’ll love it.”

“She will,” says Jester, her voice a soft thing, as she leans up—

“Hey, guys,” says Yasha, and Fjord jumps away with a strangled curse, almost instinctively. Jester staggers, somewhat unbalanced, and Fjord quickly catches her again before she can fall. The band is still playing, the other dancers are still twirling and spinning around them, but Yasha hasn’t joined in, standing somewhat awkwardly by herself. “Um. Was I interrupting something? You guys looked like you were really getting into it, and—I can leave. It’s fine.”

“No, no, it’s fine, we oughta get going anyway,” says Fjord, as reality crashes back down on his shoulders. Jester dusts her dress off beside him. “Just got caught up in this, that’s all.”

“It’s a festival, you’re _supposed_ to get caught up in it,” says Jester. “What is it, Yasha?”

“We found something,” says Yasha. “I think you should come see.”


	47. shake it up just once for me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Gregory Alan Isakov's "Master and a Hound".

A thorough search of the apartment yields other stashes, of coins and papers for false identities, a cache of crossbow bolts that Nott takes for herself and a few daggers that Molly immediately turns over to Caleb for identification, and another ledger, this one full. There’s not much else, and none of the daggers are magical in nature, but—still.

“They were already planning to leave,” he says, as the three of them descend the rickety, rotting stairs. Frumpkin’s poofed back into existence now, waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs and licking at his paws. “That tracks with what Ronwell told us, and with what you’ve said Lestra’s mentioned.”

Molly flips the ledger open, narrows his eyes at the words like he’s trying to figure them out. He licks the tip of his finger before he turns the page, then looks up at Caleb.

Nott, riding on top of Molly’s shoulders, leans over and squints at the ledger herself. “It’s their expenses,” she says. “I kept something like this once for Yeza—” Then she stops, and says, “I mean, I saw something like it once!”

Molly raises an eyebrow, clearly suspicious. They really ought to tell Molly about Nott’s past, Caleb realizes, so he says, “How about we visit those tailors you bought your dress from, Mollymauk? They must be done by now with what you asked, and I—I would like a new pair of shoes.” He lifts up his foot to show off the worn-out boot, the sole on the verge of falling off, and says, “These have served me well, but they’re coming to the end of their time. What do you think?”

“Oh, _yes_ ,” breathes Molly, his eyes lighting up even in the dim light. He shuts the ledger closed and says, “The sooner we get out of here the better, and if we go back to those two tailors, all the better. They’re lovely people.”

“There’s some shit there that seemed nice,” Nott ventures now. “Sure, let’s drop by.”

So they go, with Caleb taking up the rear and keeping an eye out for the two smugglers and for Verrin, stalking after them. He sees neither hide nor hair of any of them, though, and after a moment lets himself relax and catches back up to Molly and Nott, as they walk back into the thick of the festival.

“—and then Frumpkin stood up and started dancing,” Nott’s saying, “and Caleb said _I am but a humble servant of the Fey King_ , and the whole time the kobolds were just staring at us—I don’t blame them, y’know? We’re a pretty odd group.”

Molly snickers, and the sound of it warms Caleb from the inside out, like a good warm bowl of his mother’s soup on a cold day. He—hadn’t forgotten how that felt, actually, his memory is like a steel trap (except for his years in the asylum, slipped from his grasp like sand through his fingers), but he’d shoved it down because it was a distraction, then because it was too painful. But now it’s back, warming his belly and his chest, and he can’t help but smile a little at Molly.

“Exactly!” says Nott. “Oh—Oh, we haven’t told you about _Spurt_ yet.” She sighs, sadly. “Poor fucker. We only knew him less than a day tops, and then he got squished almost immediately.”

Molly closes his eyes and puts a hand over his heart, as if in sympathy. The fabric of his dress shifts with the movement, and just a bit more of the scar where Lorenzo’s glaive slammed into his chest is clear for a moment before his hand drops and his eyes open.

He hadn’t kissed him, afterwards. Had only smoothed his hair back from his forehead, half-expecting Molly to open his eyes and smirk up at him and say something, wondering why his heart felt so shattered on the peaceful ( _wrong_ ) look on Molly’s face, usually so vibrant and alive.

He hadn’t known it could hurt worse than that. Then Molly had come back, snarling and broken and trying to kill them, and the dead-eyed look on his face had been so much worse than seeing him dead. Then the terror in his eyes immediately afterward, the way he’d flinched back from being touched, had been worse than _that_.

But he’s smiling now, just as vibrant as he had been before, like a firework in the sky. Caleb won’t let his life be as brief, this time. He can do that much for him. He can’t—He can’t have much more than that, not now and perhaps not ever, but he’s all right with that.

He _is_. Molly deserves better than a broken thing like Caleb.

—someone bumps his side. He blinks, and Molly’s laced his fingers through his hand and tugged him towards a small stall, selling slices of apple pies, cookies shaped like a woman wielding a sword, other sweets that must’ve come fresh from the oven.

His hand is warm.

Caleb is in so much trouble.

Nott clambers down from Molly’s shoulders, her porcelain mask firmly in place. “We’ll have five—wait, Jester— _ten_ boxes of those cookies,” she says. “And three slices of apple pie for the three of us.”

Molly doesn’t let go of Caleb’s hand. It’s—It’s fine, this is fine. Mollymauk is affectionate to everyone, and after what he’s been through, Caleb can’t blame him for wanting to hold whoever’s closest to him. With Nott off his shoulders, that means Caleb. This doesn’t mean anything.

His heart is thumping against his chest like a rabbit’s foot, before it takes off into the meadows.

 _So_ much trouble.

\--

It’s funny how things taste better, after seven months in hell.

Molly—remembers enough, of that time. Not everything, and after Jester’s efforts he’s not too sure how much of what he remembers of then is reliable, but. The torture he remembers. The way they fed him, too, withdrawing meals when he wasn’t cooperating, only letting him have a meal when he did. And just once or twice a day, maybe.

He thinks. It had been hard to keep track in the dark, and a lot of his memory is fuzzy.

The point is—things taste sweeter when you haven’t had them in a while. Molly could get drunk on the giddiness alone, the sheer delight that surges through him when he bites down on something deliciously sweet, when he steps out of the inn into the sunlight, when he can hold a conversation with someone about anything at all. Little things. Practically inconsequential, when he thinks about it, and completely basic shit. All of which he’d been denied when the Empire had him, because weapons don’t eat apple pies or talk about if skeletons technically still count as corpses or dance, laughing and carefree, in the sunlight.

Molly isn’t a weapon. He’s got friends, family, choices now that he didn’t have before. He’s a person. He gets these things. He deserves these things, because everyone does.

And he’ll keep telling himself that until the part of him that’s still trapped in that dark, cramped cell starts to believe it. Or until the mantra drowns it out, for now.

He takes a final bite out of the pie as they step into _Elena’s_ once more, eyes scanning the room for Mikhail and Flynn. Flynn’s at the counter again, and he seems to light up when they come in, almost falling off his stool as he shouts, “Hey! Welcome back!”

“ _Danke_ , it’s good to be back,” says Caleb, somewhat awkwardly. “Do you have any boots?”

Molly, for lack of a voice, just waves hello.

Nott says, “Do you have anything I can use to make a necklace with? String, buttons, anything? Or fake flowers?”

“We have so many buttons there’s like, six jars of them,” says Flynn. “And the boots are right over there,” he adds for Caleb, jerking a thumb over to a corner of the shop where, sure enough, there’s a fuckton of shoes. Caleb immediately abandons them both for the racks of shoes, inspecting the plainer-looking ones. “How’s your dress, by the way?”

Molly sticks a thumb upwards, pairs it with a lopsided smile. Flynn places a hand over his heart and sighs, as if relieved that Molly liked it. Considering he’s wearing it right now, he’s surprised it’s less obvious he adores it.

He taps Nott on the shoulder, and traces the shape of a shirt in the air.

“What, you want a new shirt?” says Nott.

He shakes his head, points at Flynn, and mimes taking gold out of his purse and dropping it on the counter, then sewing.

“Oh, right, you want the clothes you had altered,” says Nott. She says— _something_ to Flynn, Molly’s not sure what, but it’s not a language that he knows. He does know the tone of a question when he hears it, though.

Whatever Nott’s said, it’s gotten Flynn thinking. He points at Molly and says, “I’ll be right back. Mikhail’s probably done by now with most of them, but he got into a fight _like a fucking dumbass_ —”

“I told you that I wasn’t the one who started it this time!” Mikhail hollers from the back room. “And I can _hear you_ , Flynn, I’m blind, not deaf!”

“You’re still a pain in my ass!” Flynn shouts back, whirling around just to flip the back room off. “Why the hell did I marry you again?!”

“Because of my ass, I’m guessing!”

“Aw,” says Nott, as Molly covers his fit of laughter with a fit of coughing.

“Listen,” Flynn continues, shooting the both of them a Look, “Mikhail, the really good tippers are back, they wanna know what’s the hold-up on their shit!”

“Hold your horses, Flynn, I’m just about done,” Mikhail calls back. “Can you come in here a sec, help me bag these up right?”

“Duty calls,” says Flynn, hopping off his stool. “I’ll be right back, with your clothes and Miss Holly’s buttons and strings and fake flowers.” He scampers off to the back room, disappearing behind a beaded curtain.

Molly leans against the counter then, and tugs his notebook out of his coat as Nott pulls herself up to perch on it. _can we talk,_ he writes.

“You wanna go talk to Caleb first?” says Nott.

 _this is ok,_ he writes. _whos yezza?_

Nott lets out a breath, twists her fingers in her sleeves. “Do you not remember what I said about him?” she asks. “About the halfling man, from—from before I ran away from the clan?”

Molly twirls the pencil around his fingers, casting his mind back. He—does remember that, actually. Mostly he remembers just kind of not really _caring_ , because what use would caring about someone else’s past have for any of them? If Nott wanted to be fretful about her own past, fine, just as long as she didn’t fret about his. After all, he wouldn’t worry that much over hers.

 _y I do,_ he writes at last.

“Yeah,” says Nott. “Um. So.” She picks at her hair, at her sleeves, even at the hem of her cloak. “I wasn’t telling the whole truth then. I wasn’t—I wasn’t ready to. But I already told it to the rest, after—a little while after you died, and it wouldn’t be fair to leave you out of it.”

 _u kno I dont care right,_ he writes. _Im fine not nowing I was prety shur you werent teling the truth befor anyway and I dont mind._ Which is a damned filthy lie, he _does_ mind, but goddammit he doesn’t want to know Nott’s past, on top of Caleb’s and, ugh, _Lucien’s_ , may that bastard rot to nothing in the back of Molly’s brain.

But. Well.

He is rapidly figuring out that he doesn’t like being left out.

“Uh-huh,” says Nott, raising an eyebrow. “Yeah, you do.” Curse her for cutting right through his bullshit, it’s worse than Beau sometimes. “I need you to promise me something. I need to know if you’re going to listen to me now, if you didn’t before, because I—I _need_ you to hear me out.” She looks him right in the eye, and says, “You made me promise to—to do something for you, if you ever needed it done. Now make it fair.”

Molly sighs. He can’t—He honestly doesn’t know if he can turn Nott down, now that she’s invoked what he’s asked of her. He nods, and shuts his notebook for effect.

“Okay,” says Nott. “I—I’m Nott. I’m a little,” she looks back, and lowers her voice to a whisper, “I’m a little goblin girl. But before that, I was—I was Veth.” She takes a deep breath, then exhales. “A halfling woman,” she says, and it’s a fucking miracle Molly doesn’t drop his notebook immediately.

It’s even more of a miracle that he doesn’t drop it at any point during Nott’s confession, as the words spill out from her. He’s always figured she was hiding something, sure, but they’re all hiding something in this group. He just—hadn’t expected it to also be dying and then coming back to life, just _different_. He hadn’t expected Nott to be married, or to have a little boy she’s keeping safe and sending shit to, somewhere in Alfield.

 _He could change me. He could change this,_ Nott’s voice echoes again in the back of his head. He swallows the bile that rises in his throat.

He’d thought—well, who would want to be a goblin, right? Nott’s a good person, but it’s hard to shake all the tales of little murderous goblins running about. He hadn’t realized—

 _are they ok,_ he writes, when Nott’s done telling her story. When he looks away from her, he can see Caleb just nearby, pretending to be casually checking out another pair of shoes but furtively glancing over at them, every now and then.

“They’re fine,” Nott confirms. “Yeza’s in Alfield, with Luke and old Edith. I’m—he said he’d be okay with me, either way.” She smiles down at her hands. “He still loves me,” she says, and something in Molly’s heart twists. “I look like a monster, and he still loves me.”

Molly looks down at his hands, at his notebook and pencil. He’d been a good person, he knows that. At least he’d been trying to be. What he is now, though—he isn’t sure, just yet. He’s still _trying_ to be good, trying to claw back as much of what he’d lost to the Empire as possible, but he’s not—he’s not going to delude himself into thinking he can get all of it back. He can’t, no matter how much he might wish he could. He’s changed too much.

Change is—it’s unavoidable, he knows that, and he’s been through it before, went from the circus to the Mighty Nein in the space of _days_. But he’d still been pretty much himself. _He_ hadn’t changed a bit then, not like right now.

He wonders morbidly if that means he and Nott are the same now. Even more than they had been before, anyway. He can’t change the past, he knows that, but he wants—he wants that easy certainty in himself back, that trust in himself that he’d taken for granted. He hadn’t known how good he had it till it was gone.

Nott wants Veth back. Months ago he would’ve wondered _why_. Months ago—

He breathes out, and opens his notebook to a blank page to write, _sownds like you got inkredibly luky w/ him._

Nott beams, the corners of her mouth peeking up over her porcelain mask. The effect’s a little creepy, overall, but Molly can’t help his own smile in response. “I did, didn’t I?” she says. “I still—I still can’t go back just yet, not permanently, not right now. I have to fix all of this first, change it all _back_ , but it’s nice. To know that even if I—even if that’s not possible he’d be okay with it.”

Molly can’t help a glance over to Caleb, either. _what if thers no fixing it?_ he writes, looking back at Nott.

Nott’s smile seems to disappear behind her mask once more. “If there’s no way to fix it,” she says, softly, “then I’ll still go back. And we’ll take it a day at a time, him and me and Luke.” She sighs, and rubs a hand over her elbow. “But that’s the worst-case scenario. New worst-case scenario, anyway.”

 _wat about the hooded mayj?_ Molly writes. _your not worryd she might be,_ but his hand stops before he can continue the sentence, the Cerberus Assembly’s name on the tips of his trembling fingers.

“I don’t think she’s, well, _you know who_ , if that’s what you’re worried about,” says Nott.

Molly shakes his head, and writes, _not her she woodnt deal w/ goblins if she coud help it._

A memory claws its way up, of Astrid pressing her fingers against his throat and whispering words of power, her eyes dark with disgust. _You forced my hand when you forced me to work for you, Lucien,_ she had snarled, and the spell wrapped around his throat before he could spit back a curse at her. It had hurt to speak, after that.

He shivers, and writes, his hand a shaky thing, _he had to forse her into helping him with his shadey thing she told me if you ask me shes just holding a grudj._

“ _Ja_ ,” says Caleb, coming over now, abandoning the pretense of looking for new boots, “she was never one to let a slight pass us by. She used to fight our bullies, when we were younger.”

There’s a grief weighing Caleb’s voice down, like he misses Astrid. Or misses the girl she used to be, Molly thinks, the girl who would fight bullies for her friends, the girl he loved. He wonders how someone so twisted and angry could spring from a girl like that.

Caleb’s sleeve slips, as he tucks a few strands of red hair back behind his ear, and Molly catches sight of the scars decorating Caleb’s arms. Neat, surgical little hatchmarks, where crystals would’ve been buried once.

Right. That’s how.

 _shes a mutch biger 1 now,_ he writes.

“I noticed,” says Caleb.

“Hey, Caleb,” starts Nott, “do you think she’d, you know—deal with goblins?”

“No,” says Caleb, flatly. Then he pauses, and says, “But I would not put it past some of the other members. I would not even put it past—the other side.” He nods his head in a vague direction, and Nott sighs as if she understands. Which, of course she does, but Molly doesn’t, this is something he missed out on, and the realization is a lead weight dropping into the pit of his stomach.

There is a gulf between him and his friends, and a light shines on it whenever they start talking about the things and the people they met, while he was gone. There’s a gulf between him and the person he used to be, carefree and colorful, knowing nothing of silence and darkness and what it feels like to shatter like brittle iron.

He manages a smile, anyway. Then it slips, and he sighs. _wat other side?_

“That may not be the best subject to ask about here, Mollymauk,” says Caleb, nodding to someone, and Molly turns to see Flynn coming back out of the back room now with clothes in his arms, stuffing them into a paper bag. “But—ask me later, and I will answer.” _I promise,_ he doesn’t say, but it’s there all the same.

The Assembly wouldn’t have let him ask anything. The Geas had been laid on him and all the other walking dead to prevent that, even laying aside Astrid’s apparent grudge. If he tried anyway, they wouldn’t answer, just try to burn the question, any questions out of him.

And here’s Caleb, offering, trying, being a decent person. It’s the _baseline_ of decency, and it’s not as if Molly can’t ask anyone else so long as he has his notebook and pencil, and yet. And _yet_.

Says a lot about how fucked up the Assembly is, really.

“I’m gonna take a wild guess and say you guys all had a heart-to-heart?” Flynn asks, as Molly tucks his notebook away in his coat. He takes the altered clothes from the little shopkeeper, can’t help running his fingers over the fabrics, soft to the touch. “I mean, seemed like you were hashing something out.”

Caleb and Nott visibly tense. Molly smiles, not quite feeling it, and shrugs.

“Okay,” says Flynn, holding his hands up, “clearly, none of my business. Don’t worry, I didn’t hear anything.” He nods to the back room, and says, “It’s pretty far back, Mikhail’s desk and shit, and the acoustics in this place are _shit_.”

“We’ll take your word for that,” says Caleb, somewhat warily.

“Did you find the boots you wanted?” Flynn asks Caleb, and the two of them start chattering about boot soles and durability as Molly hands Nott his notebook and pencil, shrugs his coat off, stuffs it into the bag, and pulls the blue coat on. It needs some embroidering before he can truly call it his own, but when he spins it flares out quite nicely. The material is soft to the touch, well-worn and well-loved, and even the occasional circular hole can’t diminish Molly’s love for this new coat.

“That’s a pretty nice coat,” says Nott, approvingly. “I bet someone _noble_ had it first.”

Molly grins at her, then sketches out a bow in response, the way he’s seen nobles sometimes do. This coat’s plainer than his usual tastes, right now, but with material like this, he can forgive that little sin. Besides, he likes the silver braiding. Maybe he’ll use silver and golden thread for this one, make a sky out of the coat’s back: a golden sun here, a silver moon there, and stars in between.

“Hey, Caleb!” Nott calls, snapping Molly out of his idle plans for elaborate embroidery.

Caleb turns, and says, “What is—”

Then he stops, and his cheeks flush an attractive shade of pink as Molly turns to look at him. “Oh,” is all Caleb offers.

It’s enough to warm Molly’s chest from the inside out. He does a small spin, the bottom of the coat fluttering with his dress, and a corner of Caleb’s mouth twitches upwards in a smile, small but real and _there_. Molly could get high on Beau’s remaining supply of skein, on strange fungi dotting the road, on illicit substances sold in dark alleyways, but he wouldn’t come _close_ to the giddy bubbles that float into his throat when Caleb smiles at him.

“You look—well,” Caleb says, after a moment. “Very well.” He pauses a moment, running a hand through his hair, and adds, “And happier now, too. I am glad, you deserve quite a lot of happiness.” He ducks his head, and says to Flynn, “I will just—go look for a pair elsewhere, but you have a very lovely selection and I know it’ll catch someone else’s eye—”

“Wait, Caleb!” Nott calls, but it’s too late, Caleb’s all but sprinted out of the building.

Molly shoves his hands into his pockets, trying to ignore the sting of his heart cracking, just a little. He hoists the bag up onto his shoulder, waves a goodbye at Flynn and tosses him a gold coin, then tugs on Nott’s arm and flicks his hand out towards the door.

“Thanks for the help!” Nott calls, grabbing Molly’s hand and pulling him towards the door. She’s only not dragging him there because he’s helping, but even then she’s much faster than he is, and he can barely keep up. “We’ll come back!”

“Please do!” Flynn shouts back. “And go get that boy!”


	48. a brand new tragedy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from City and Colour’s “Weightless”! just a one-section chapter today.

Stale bread, a ripped-up letter, and a torn piece of dark fabric.

As mysteries go, this is the most exciting one that Jester’s ever found herself solving! It’s just like the mysteries she used to read as a little girl, where the detective had just seemingly random bits and pieces as evidence, racing against time to connect all the pieces together and figure out where the killer would strike next. The only thing missing is Nott, her partner. And a very specific kind of hat.

She loves Molly, she really does, but his hat is not the kind of thing detectives walk around wearing while they’re trying to solve a mystery, so she’s given it to Twiggy this time for safekeeping.

“I don’t like this,” says Yasha, sitting by the window of their room at the inn. She and Beau have been taking turns in keeping an eye out for their mysterious cloaked stranger, but so far neither of them have reported anything suspicious. Jester’s sure they’d see it the _second_ anyone started acting suspicious in their vicinity, but just in case—

Well, she’s still got that little pearl, and she’s loaded a Guiding Bolt in it.

Just in case.

Twiggy, sitting on the bed with Molly’s fancy and oversized hat slipping down over her forehead, pushes it back up. “Why not?” she asks. “It’s a mystery! Isn’t that cool?”

“It is cool,” says Jester, stopping in her tracks, sure that she’s worn a groove in the floor from how much she’s pacing, “but it would be a whole lot cooler if there wasn’t a teeny-tiny possibility that stranger was after _us_.” Then she pauses, and says, “After Yasha, anyway.” Or Molly, only if they really were after Molly she’s got this feeling they would be stalking him already.

“Or Molly,” says Fjord.

“They’ve got a direct line into Molly’s head and they had enough time with him to take some shit off him that they could use if they wanted to scry,” says Beau, leaning against the wall, her whole body thrumming with nervousness. “I think we’d definitely know by now if they were going after Molly. He sticks out like a sore thumb, especially around us.”

“We don’t even know if they were after us specifically, technically,” says Jester. “There’s an election and everything coming up, maybe they were sent to check on that instead.” She flops back onto the bed and says, “We won’t know for sure unless we put that letter back together, and I can’t just cast Mending on the pieces when they’re not all arranged the right way.”

“I can take a crack at it,” says Beau, with a shrug.

“I’d love to try too!” says Twiggy, feeding Trixie some fresh bread. “It’ll be like putting a puzzle together.”

Fjord winces, noticeably. Honestly, Jester feels pretty much the same way, the Mighty Nein have run across a _lot_ of life-threatening puzzles in their time. At least this one doesn’t have a time limit.

“Me and Yasha’ll keep an eye out for our, ah, _friend_ ,” Fjord says, standing up to take up the other side of the window. He crosses his arms and straightens up a little, chest puffing up as if he’s trying to make himself look a little more impressive. “Just in case.”

Twiggy dumps the torn pieces of the letter out on the bed, as Beau moves over to look at it. Even from Jester’s vantage point, near the door and away from the bed, she can tell putting it back together is going to be tough. But if anyone can do it (besides Caleb), it’s Beau. She’s a lot smarter than she lets on.

Sure enough, Beau casually sits down on the bed and starts to arrange the pieces together. Jester clambers onto the bed as well to peek over her and Twiggy’s shoulders, careful not to disturb the papers.

After a moment, Beau sighs, and shakes her head. “They’re all pretty small pieces,” she says. “Whoever ripped up this letter really didn’t want to take any chances someone would read it.”

“Do we have any idea where our new friend went, then?” Fjord asks, nodding towards the torn, bloody piece of fabric, staining the bedsheet.

“Nope,” says Yasha. “They were gone when we got there. We know they didn’t want anyone following them, and we know they’re good at covering their tracks. And we know they’re working for the Assembly.”

Jester scoots forward, picks up the dark cloth, and says, “What if they’re not willingly working for them? What if they’re like Molly was?” She waves the cloth around and says, “The wizard we fought, the one Caleb knew, he wasn’t wearing black, _Molly_ was. And the ones we met in Zadash after the Victory Pit, they had on super fancy white robes.”

“Yeah,” says Beau, “yeah, they were even wearing those fancy bathrobes when they went after the guy we met in the sewers.”

Jester can’t help but giggle. “They _do_ look like fancy bathrobes,” she says. “And they’re super weird about keeping them clean, too. Remember how mad the wizard we fought was when my lollipop knocked him into the ground?” Granted, he’d been spitting mad that his plan had fallen apart, but it’s funnier for her to imagine that a significant part of it had likely been because he’d gotten dirt on his fancy robes.

Yasha huffs out a laugh, a short, light, almost musical sound. Beau’s head whips around at the sound, and the corners of her mouth curve upward in a real smile, small as it is. “I think he was pretty angry over a lot of things,” says Yasha, completely unaware of Beau staring at her like she’s singing the sweetest slowest most romantic song in the world, “but he seemed the type to take offense to getting dirt on his clothes, wizard of the Assembly or not.”

“You guys get up to some crazy things,” Twiggy comments, squinting down at the torn pieces of the letter. “Hold on,” she says, picking up a piece, “I think I know where this goes.”

Soon enough, to Jester’s surprise, Twiggy’s carefully reassembled enough of the letter that she and Beau can make out words and phrases on bigger pieces reassembled: things like _Assembly’s wishes_ and _Crownsguard records_ and _ensure Rojen’s cooperation_ and _the snake’s mother_ and—

_—luck on her coming graduation,_ a scrap, delicately put back together from the debris of the letter, reads. Jester’s blood runs cold.

“What’s this about a warehouse?” Twiggy asks, breaking through the thoughts spinning through Jester’s head. “The snake’s mother? What’s that mean?”

“It means that whoever our buddy on the roof was, they’ve got orders about the guy we’re planning to steal from,” says Beau. “From the fucking _Assembly_ itself, which—the fuck, really?”

“Uh, guys?” says Jester. _Luck on her graduation._

“Ah, hell,” Fjord groans. “Lemme guess, it’s the warehouse again. Same one Lestra wants back, same one Rattlesnake’s stashing a few people in. That right?”

“Guys,” says Jester, voice going up an octave.

“Yeah, I’m starting to see a pattern here,” says Beau.

“ _Guys_ ,” says Jester, and everyone turns to look at her. “When did Caleb say he graduated again?”

“When he was seventeen,” Yasha says.

“Not _that_ ,” says Jester, impatiently, sticking a hand out to the world outside their inn. The last vestiges of spring aren’t so visible in one of the less tourist-laden districts of Lynbroke, but Jester can feel the spring breeze tickling her fingers, smell the blooming flowers from a cart being pushed past their window. “I meant, what time of year? Because if that was meant for who I _think_ it was meant for—”

“Oh,” says Beau, the penny dropping. “Oh, _shit_.”


	49. this was not my master plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Cold War Kids’ “Broken Open”.

Caleb has scarcely found himself a seat just two blocks down from the little thrift store when he hears Nott’s voice: _Caleb! Caleb, where are you? Caleb! Where are you?_

It’s a fight and a half to pull the copper wire out of his pocket—somehow it’s gotten tangled on the threads of his coat, and he has to carefully tug it out. All the while, Nott’s messages grow more and more concerned, and Caleb finds himself frantically scanning for her in the crowds around him, and for purple skin and a rich blue coat, hanging around the stalls lining the streets.

Nothing. He’s not surprised, the crowds are thick today.

Eventually he manages to work the wire free, even as he remembers that he doesn’t actually _need_ to, but—well, he’s worked too hard on getting it free now. He holds it up to his mouth and says, “ _Ja_ , Nott, I am fine, I am all right—I only went out for some fresh air, I’m sitting on a bench near a stall—I think they’re selling potions?” He has to crane his neck to see even just the name of the stall, nailed to the top: _Nature’s Bounty,_ it reads, in curled, elegant letters. He can’t see what it’s selling beyond the crush of people. “It’s named _Nature’s Bounty_ ,” he says.

It takes a minute, but eventually Nott replies, _Molly sees it! We’re coming over right now if he doesn’t get distracted by it. You can reply to this message._

Caleb is pretty sure he just might get distracted. Maybe Molly isn’t curious for the same things as Caleb, but he’d seemed very keen on having new experiences before—well, all this. He’d been so delighted in Hupperdook, eyes wide and joyful in the simple enjoyment of the town’s sights. And he’d eyed up that apothecary back in Barrelben, hadn’t he.

Well, Caleb isn’t going to fault him for deciding to try a more chemically-induced way of escapism, after everything that’s happened. He just hopes Molly tries it _after_ they’ve cast the restoration spell on him, gods only know how he’ll react to getting high in his current state.

He snaps his fingers, and Frumpkin poofs into his lap, stretching out and yawning as he kneads his claws into Caleb’s pants. “ _Ow_ ,” Caleb huffs, but even Frumpkin’s claws can’t stop him from gently petting his cat.

Surprisingly, when he sees a flash of purple skin and a blue coat in the crowd, it’s not making a beeline for the apothecary. Instead Molly strides purposefully towards Caleb, a bag dangling from his elbow, and—and he’s still wearing that blue coat, and Caleb’s throat _still_ goes dry.

It’s not quite so colorful as Molly’s usual fare, certainly. By circus standards, it might even be called _plain_ , if only because it isn’t a chaotic riot of colors and patterns. But it’s a rich, deep blue coat made of fine material, hemmed and lined with silver that almost seems to glitter under the sunlight, the only other embellishments some silver and even gold braiding and fur lining the upturned collar. The lapels are lined with both golden and silver thread, with the silver creeping up towards the collar. Here and there, however, are holes and patched tears like a variety of weapons went through the owner at various points in time—must’ve been an adventurer’s coat, Caleb supposes. He wonders how the previous owner must be doing right now.

...probably dead.

Caleb swallows the lump that’s grown in his throat. Molly’s new coat is one thing, but paired with his dress—deep blue and rich red are bold colors, sharp contrasts set against each other, and on Molly’s purple skin, they make him stand out all the more, especially in this crowd.

Gods. Caleb should be far more worried and paranoid about Molly standing out than he is. There aren’t a lot of purple tieflings around, and should the wrong people catch wind of one with tattoos walking around Lynbroke wearing bright colors, they would likely have their doubts about the sightings being a coincidence.

But Molly smiles when Caleb meets his eyes, and there’s a light behind them now that hadn’t been there days ago.

Molly _likes_ standing out on his terms, Caleb realizes. He can’t take that away from him, especially not if Molly’s only just gotten it back. Caleb is a horrible person, a terrible creature with bloodsoaked hands who has done awful things and will again in the pursuit of his goals, but—he cares, maybe a little too much. Definitely a little too much, but Molly deserves that kindness, that consideration, that _care_ , in a way that Caleb doesn’t.

So all he says is, “I, ah, I just needed some fresh air.”

Nott pokes her head out behind Molly’s legs. Her eyebrow goes up into the shadow of her hood, but she thankfully does not say anything about the obvious lie. Instead she says, “Hey, Caleb, how many healing potions do you have on you right now?”

“Two,” says Caleb. “Why?”

“You’re running low,” she says, and shoves lightly at Molly’s knees, making him stumble forward somewhat. “I’m buying us healing potions—Molly, you keep an eye on him, all right?”

Molly flicks off a lazy salute towards her as he turns around, walking backwards the rest of the way. Then he more or less flops down onto the bench next to Caleb as Nott scampers off into the crowds, his body a warm weight pressing into his side. In his lap, Frumpkin _mrows_ , and half-heartedly bats at Molly’s knee. Molly hums, and indulgently, lightly scratches Frumpkin’s chin.

“It’s a very fine coat,” says Caleb, at last.

Molly looks up at him, laughs, and pats the bag beside him. The sleeve of his coat peeks out from the top.

“Is that your favorite?” Caleb asks.

“Yes,” says Molly, without hesitation. “It was—It was the first thing I knew was mine.” He waves a hand over the charms dangling from his horns, at his dress and fine blue coat. “Don’t get me wrong, I love all of these, I’ve missed just having things, but my coat was the first thing I ever owned and it’s the first thing that came back to me.” He lets his hand drop from scratching Frumpkin, and the little traitor cat immediately relocates to Molly’s lap from Caleb’s, meowing loudly for attention. “Or second,” Molly says, reflectively, obliging Frumpkin’s plaintive meows.

“What was the first?” Caleb asks, curious.

“You,” says Molly, and Caleb’s heart leaps into his throat. “Well, all of you, really.” He looks away, his smile fading as he buries his fingers in Frumpkin’s fur. “I—They tried, you know? They wanted a weapon they could use on rebels, something no one would miss after they used it up. Whenever I started to remember things, want things, Astrid would—would—I don’t actually remember? I just know it hurt. So I—tried not to. Remember, I mean. After a while it even worked.” He shivers, and Caleb straightens up, bringing his hand up to rest it on Molly’s elbow, just in case. Molly’s arm trembles against Caleb’s skin.

“And then Yonnah took me to you lot,” Molly says, after a moment. “And I could remember little bits, little pieces, scattered like the wind. And I didn’t want to hurt, not again.”

Torture can yield all manner of things, benefiting the interrogator. Caleb knows that well enough, he’s tortured a lot of people in his time. He’d only done it to pull answers out of stubborn heretics and rebels, to make Ikithon proud of him, but—they had been told how _die lebenden Toten_ usually came about, how they were stubborn dogs who needed to be broken first before they could serve the Empire and repent for their crimes.

Gods, and Bren had _believed_ that. It makes bile rise in Caleb’s throat, now that Molly’s come back to them.

“You know we will not let you go back to that, _ja?_ ” Caleb says. “Astrid will not touch you again, I swear that. Just— _sag mir bitte_? Anything that’s on your mind. _Sag etwas,_ Mollymauk.”

“You were the first things to come back to me,” says Molly, “and I was so far _gone_ I was scared that—that she would have reason, that _they_ would put me back in that cell, hurt me again, if I didn’t—do what they made me do. I don’t remember much, beyond that, I was just so scared.”

The chains most likely didn’t help in that. “What changed?” Caleb asks, instead of bringing those up.

“You,” says Molly, looking up to meet his gaze. “You gave me my coat back. Or, well, I guess Nott did, anyway, you just sat next to me when she dumped into my arms. That helped a lot.” He holds up the sleeve of the coat, and says, “Nice patch job, by the way. I mean it.”

“ _Ja,_ thank you, I was trying not to burn it all to pieces when we fought the _arschloch_ who stole it,” says Caleb. “What is that face for?”

Molly, who’s frowning at him with the bridge of his nose scrunched up, says, “Well, thanks for not burning it, I appreciate it.” He lets go of the sleeve, drums his fingers against his kneecap. “Can I ask you something?”

“ _Fragt mich, was ihr wollt_ ,” Caleb dutifully says.

Molly tilts his head up towards the sky, his hands returning to cuddle with Frumpkin, and says, “Did you ever hear about—about any others like me? Like us?”

Caleb looks down at his hands, clasped together onto his lap, and rubs a thumb over a knuckle. He wants so badly to tell him that yes, he has, and there are plenty of them, but that would be a lie. He’s told them before, and told them to Mollymauk without his conscience twinging, but something about lying now when Molly’s as vulnerable as this, after what he’s just confessed—Caleb can’t bring himself to do it.

“If there were anyone like me,” Caleb says, “their names have been burned out of memory for their treason. And if anyone has managed to come back, as you did, it would only have been a matter of time before the Empire dragged them back, or killed them if they were beyond salvaging.”

Molly looks back down at Frumpkin again, biting his lower lip, his red eyes hooded. _Comfort him,_ Caleb thinks, and Frumpkin purrs in Molly’s lap, stretching out and resting his paws on Molly’s chest. He sticks his tongue out in a blep, and Molly smiles, scratches lightly behind the fey cat’s ears.

Maybe they’ll be the first, to stay free and clear of the Empire. Hope sparks in his chest at the thought, a flickering flame touching the wick of a candle.

But first they need to secure that damn dust.

\--

The sun’s high in the sky by the time they come back to the inn, Caleb walking ahead with Frumpkin snoozing around his neck and Nott trailing behind, her yellow eyes darting around as if keeping an eye out. Molly shoves his hands into the pockets of his new coat, and tries not to look at exit routes and windows, shadows and passers-by. If he doesn’t look, the part of him that’s— _trained_ , like a dog, won’t start spouting off about exit routes and efficient methods of murder and what else might be lurking in the shadows.

It makes bile rise in his throat, when he starts thinking that way. Some level of paranoia is needed and healthy, certainly, especially if you’re on the road, and a tiefling on the road at that, but you’ve got to trust the people you’re with. You’ve got to at least trust that the strangers passing by you, the strangers coming to the tent for a show are at least halfway decent and don’t personally wish you harm. If someone’s shady, trust them anyway where you can and don’t trust them where you can’t.

_If someone is acting suspicious, they’re hiding something that the Empire very strictly disapproves of, and your duty is to sniff that out and—take care of it._

_Go fuck yourself,_ Molly thinks viciously, stomping down on the intrusive, unwanted thought. His duty is to his friends, and the only thing he needs to do is to keep them safe. His duty is to get a fucking haircut without having a panic attack and to buy as much jewelry and food and as many clothes as he wants.

“Are you all right?” Caleb asks, and Molly shakes himself out of his reverie.

“I’m fine,” he says. “Just—thinking about where I’m going, when you head off to the bigger library.” He taps the scar on his chest with a blunt fingernail, and says, “I can’t go there. Too much of a risk someone would know who I am and where I’m supposed to be.”

“ _Ja,_ best to keep you away from anything close to Rexxentrum,” says Caleb. “But what do you plan to do while I am away, before this—meeting you set up?”

“Embroidery,” says Molly. “Maybe a haircut if Yasha’s up for it.” And if he doesn’t immediately start panicking the second the dagger comes out. _Yasha has cut your hair before. You’re gonna be fine._ “I don’t really know, but I plan to find out, surprise myself.” In a good way, gods know he could use a pleasant surprise.

“What do you want to embroider onto your coat?” Caleb asks, and Molly hums, letting himself settle into this easy back-and-forth rhythm. He can pretend, for a little while, that the biggest worry they both have is something petty like which hat to buy, what to embroider, how many donuts is too many donuts.

“The stars,” says Molly. “The moon. Maybe even the sun, but it wouldn’t be very big.” He tugs on the cuffs of the coat, says, “I might slash the sleeves up a bit, or just replace them entirely. I’d rather have the former. This is some very nice material, but—well, you know what I do.” Cut himself open, watch the ice crystallize or the light flare along the edge of a blade, get stabbing. That had always been enough for him. That hadn’t been enough for the Empire, certainly not for Astrid.

“And it kinda squashes the dress’s sleeves down,” he adds. “So I’m thinking, maybe a bit of room for them?”

“That would work,” Caleb says, idly scratching his cat behind the ears and getting a sleepy purr out of him. “What else do you plan to do it?”

“I have _no idea_ ,” says Molly with a laugh. “I guess we’ll see!”

“We’ll see,” Caleb echoes, and Molly doesn’t know if Caleb knows this, but when he smiles it’s like—a star, twinkling brightly in the sky. Like the sun coming out behind the clouds. Like a crackling campfire that warms Molly down to his very bones, thaws the ice and the snow that he’s been trapped in for months. If he touches him he might finally come back to life. If he kisses him he fancies he might light up like a star too, float on thin air, fly like the bird he stole a name from.

And Caleb is smiling now, small and soft. Does he know he’s smiling? If Molly were to kiss him, right here and right now, would he smile like that?

Nott clears her throat behind them, and Molly blinks. The world around them comes flooding back as the bubble pops, and with it comes the cold knowledge that right now, without Caleb to urge him, he can’t even _talk_.

Molly likes to think he’s a good person, but he’s not a saint. The petty, bitchy, vindictive part of him wants so, so badly to burn the Assembly to the ground and roast marshmallows over the roaring fire. The little scared bit, trapped in a dungeon cell and half-mad from the darkness, wants out, wants to run away from the Assembly, from the Mighty Nein, from _Caleb_. Wants never to get stuck back in the darkness again.

The rest of him mourns the lost opportunity, as he turns to look at Nott, who’s jerking a thumb back towards their inn.

Wait.

“Our inn’s _this way_ ,” she says.

They _missed their inn_. Molly glances over at Caleb, who looks a little mortified, and gently bumps his shoulder, trying to suppress a small smile. He fails pretty miserably at that.

“How did we miss our inn,” Caleb’s muttering as he and Molly traipse back, Molly walking backwards just—well, because he feels like it. It doesn’t last long anyway, he stumbles a little on a crack he hadn’t foreseen and has to right himself, then scramble to catch back up to Caleb, right before they step into their inn. Nott is already nowhere to be found.

He does tap his throat, on the way in, eyes catching on—nothing, actually. No one else is downstairs, although Molly can hear light, frantic footsteps. Too heavy to be Yasha, so Beau or Jester, maybe? Or Fjord? Probably Nott, he thinks, skittering upstairs.

“ _Sag etwas,_ Mollymauk,” says Caleb.

“Maybe I’m just a really good conversation partner,” Molly says. He hears another set of footprints, heavier and more deliberate, but doesn’t pay it a whole lot of attention. “Even though, y’know, I’ve been out of practice.”

Caleb opens his mouth, then closes it, as if running the conversation through his mind again. “ _Ja_ ,” he says, finally, mouth twitching up into a small smile once more, “you have a natural talent.”

Molly preens, just as Beau finally steps into view and marches on over. He turns to look, and feels dread drop into his stomach at the look on her face: her jaw set, her eyes sharp and worried, her lips pressed into a thin line. Strands of hair are starting to escape from her topknot.

“Hate to break up your moment,” she says, “but we got a problem here.”


	50. don't hide yourself from the horror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from JOHNNYSWIM’s “Let It Matter”.
> 
> spoilers for episode 62, sort of! at least in terms of Caleb’s backstory. (I figured out a divergence point btw: just after giving away the d12 of destiny. let’s. pretend they asked to be able to move between the Empire and Xhorhas with ease.)

“You’re not wrong,” says Molly, twenty minutes, a tap on the throat and a command in Zemnian later, “that’s—definitely part of something we would wear.” He scowls down at the bit of dark fabric in his hand, crumpling it up like it’s personally offended him. Which Fjord supposes it probably did. “They liked black on us. It was intimidating, it was uniform, it was easier to fade into the background.”

Caleb nods, and says, “And easier for us to think of them as—tools, if they all dressed the same. If they all looked almost the same.”

Fjord’s about to point out that it’s real hard to hide a face like Molly’s when he thinks of the black armor and the black mask and the serrated sword, and he shuts his fool mouth immediately. If it hadn’t been for the mask getting ripped off, he probably wouldn’t have known Molly was one of the intruders at all. He probably would’ve tried to— _take care_ of the biggest threat on the battlefield.

He hadn’t thought of him like a person, he realizes. Just a threat to the group, not until the mask came off, not until his Eldritch Blast fizzled out in his hand and he said, _what in nine fuckin’ hells, is that—_

It’s easy to not think of someone as a person in a battle. It’s practically necessary—in a fight, they can’t always afford to think about their opponents’ families, friends, the people they’ll be leaving behind. Takes a special brand of utterly fucked-up to take that mindset out of the battlefield, though. Takes another brand of utterly fucked-up to actively cultivate that mindset.

“Shit,” says Beau, summing up everything that’s happened since that fight. They’ve all gathered in her and Jester’s room, and she’s let Caleb take over putting the letter back together with Twiggy, taking up Yasha’s place at the window instead. Yasha’s plunked herself down next to Molly on the floor, and now the two people from the circus that pulled the Mighty Nein together are leaning on each other, a study in contrasts.

_shits riyht,_ Molly writes in his notebook. _this town suks we shud get out._

“We can’t pack up and leave,” says Fjord. “We’re in too deep now.”

Molly’s lips purse. _I kno,_ he writes. _we shudv goten out befor we got this deep._

“Then we wouldn’t be getting you that diamond dust,” says Jester. “The next town’s a week away—”

“The next town is Summervale,” says Caleb, sticking his tongue out of the side of his mouth, concentrating deeply. His cat is now in Twiggy’s lap, tail contentedly lashing back and forth. Fjord does not wince at the mention of Summervale, and instead simply sends a quiet prayer to—well, anyone but Uk’otoa, that the cult living there has been burned out for good.

“—the next town we’re not _banned from_ is like two and a half weeks away,” Jester corrects. She pouts a little.

“We’re fucking heroes there though,” Nott ventures.

“We’re also still banned,” says Yasha.

“That’s what happens when you stab the mayor because he happened to be head of a murderous cult,” Beau adds.

Molly writes, _detayls layter leter and other person like me now wat do we do?_

“There is a lot of merit in Molly’s _run like hell_ plan,” Nott concedes, and Molly points his pencil at her as if to say _see she gets it,_ “but Fjord isn’t wrong. For once.”

“Wow, thanks a lot for giving me some credit, that’s mighty sweet of you,” says Fjord, sarcasm dripping off his every word. Nott is a good friend and he loves her like he loves almost anyone else in the Mighty Nein, his partiality to Jester aside, but also sometimes he wouldn’t pass up a chance to fuck with her. She doesn’t pass up a chance to fuck with him, after all.

Molly makes a face in Nott’s direction, his nose scrunching up and his lips pouting a little bit. It makes him look like he’s just realized what he’s eating isn’t what’s supposed to be in the food.

“We’ve made too many deals and promises to back out now,” says Nott, “and—and really, at the end of it all, it’s all so we can get you out from under the Assembly’s control, once and for all.”

Molly starts to write something, but stops and scratches it out, hard enough that Fjord hears the paper tear. Yasha peers over his shoulder, and says something too soft for Fjord to hear that makes Molly hunch in on himself, gnawing on his bottom lip, before shaking his head and scribbling again. Yasha’s hand drifts up to Molly’s shoulder and squeezes, and he relaxes into her touch.

Then he flips his notebook around. _wer hanging a lot of hop on that,_ he’s written. _ar we reely shur about staying heer I can wait a whyl._

“Then how’re we going to talk shit if you can’t talk?” Jester asks. “The sooner we get this done the sooner you can talk! And I really missed talking to you, Molly, you’re like the only person here who knows Infernal at _all_. It gets really boring when you can’t gossip with someone else in Infernal.”

“You gossip with me,” says Beau.

“And _me_ ,” says Nott.

“Maybe sometimes I’d like to gossip about you guys too you know,” Jester huffs. “I have so much to tell you Molly!” And then she says—well, something in Infernal that makes Molly raise his eyebrows, makes his mouth twist like he’s trying real hard not to smile. Fjord looks at Jester, and sees her grin melt into something smaller, something bright as a star in its honesty.

“Is that about me,” says Beau, warily.

“If it was, I wouldn’t _tell_ you,” says Jester, her tail wriggling as she scrambles closer to Molly.

_she sed you snor,_ Molly writes, and Beau scowls at him, with no real heat behind it. She’s come a long way since the abrasive monk Fjord met so long ago, since she started asking him for lessons on how to talk to people, something he’s pretty damn good at. A while ago that little jab would’ve been the start of a sniping match, not cause for a fondly exasperated scowl. _kiding._

“You don’t snore very much at all, Beau!” Jester says, rushing to reassure her. “Only a teeny-tiny little bit!”

Beau cracks a small smile, and says, “Y’know, Molly, she’s a way more reliable source than you, and she’s been sleeping in my room for months without complaining.”

“But what _was_ that you told him?” Nott asks.

“It’s a _secret_ ,” Jester says.

Molly writes, _teefling thing non of u wud get it sory Yasha._

“Rude!” says Nott. “Jester! Can’t you tell me?”

“Nope,” says Jester. “Molly’s right, it’s totally a special tiefling thing only. You’d have to know Infernal.”

“What if you taught me?” Nott asks.

_yor aksent wud b atroshus,_ Molly writes. _every1 here wuld be sory._

“ _Hey!_ ”

“My accent would be fine,” Fjord grumbles.

“That is fine, I don’t know if I could get some of the really complicated words down anyway,” says Yasha.

And then Caleb, on the bed, says, “Ah. Well.” He looks up, and Fjord’s the first to meet his gaze—there’s a mixture of relief and trepidation on his face, so Fjord’s pretty sure what he’s got is a mixed bag of news. Sure enough: “We haven’t been made yet, but we’ve been caught in a situation, here.”

“Ooh, what kind?” Twiggy asks, excitedly. She’s barely managing to restrain herself from bouncing excitedly, as Jester gets on the bed and casts Mending on the carefully-rearranged letter. Fjord’s got no real idea just where all that energy’s coming from, except probably from all the chocolate she apparently likes so much. Shit, they ought to make sure Twiggy doesn’t eat too much sugar, she might actually explode if she does. “The kind with even more mysteries?”

“The kind where I am not sure if we can keep you _safe_ ,” says Caleb, wringing his hands. “This letter was meant for someone being trained to be a _Vollstrecker_ , it was meant to be ripped up as soon as they read it, and that means we have stepped into a situation that the Assembly has a hand in.”

A cold stone of dread drops into Fjord’s stomach, when he sees Molly freeze in place and make a soft, upset noise. “What’s a—Foll-stre-ker?” Fjord asks, pronouncing the word as slowly as he can manage. He glances at Beau, and sees the way she’s narrowed her eyes at Caleb, too. Like something about the word’s familiar to her.

Well, if anyone could crack the meaning, it’s Beau. He’s seen her crack bigger puzzles than that.

“Assassins,” says Caleb. “What they called us—if Mollymauk and those like him were grunts and expendable resources, _we_ were to be the best, the most valuable ones.” He looks at Twiggy, whose eyes have grown wide as saucers. “You cannot tell anyone,” he says, urgently. “I am risking your _life_ , saying this—we are risking your life, and if you want out right now all you need to do is to say the word, and I will make it so that you never heard us speak of this.”

It’s probably the best choice for Twiggy. She’s an excitable sort of person, almost _innocent_ in how she looks at the world around her. She doesn’t have to be caught up in this mess. “We’ll keep you safe,” Fjord says. “Whichever path you choose, Twiggy, you have my word as Captain Tusktooth, we’ll keep you safe.” Although he would really prefer she’d take the easy way out.

Twiggy’s lips press into a thin line, and she shakes her head. “No,” she says, “no, I’m not going to leave you guys in the middle of this.” She straightens up her spine and says, “You’re my best friends in the whole _world_. I would be a horrible friend if I _left_ when you all needed me.”

“ _Oh_ ,” says Jester, and leans in to scoop Twiggy up in a hug.

Fjord lets out a breath, and says, “The more the merrier, I suppose. And I got a feeling we’re gonna need all the help we can get here.”

“Speaking of help,” says Beau, snapping Fjord’s attention to her and her crossed arms, “Caleb? I think you and me need to have a small talk.” She nods to the rest of them, and adds, “We’ll tell you guys later, there’s just something I have to confirm first.”

\--

Beau buys herself and Caleb a drink, first.

All right, fine, she has him get Frumpkin to claim them a table in the back first, far away from what few patrons are scattered around this inn that they can have a conversation with no fear of prying ears or eyes. By the time she gets there with their drinks, Frumpkin has sprawled out over the table, paws clawing at a small globe of light just out of his reach.

“Move,” Beau tells him, and Frumpkin _mrow_ s indignantly when she very gently starts to push him off the table. “I’m trying to be nice here!”

“Here, let me,” says Caleb, snapping his fingers. Frumpkin disappears from the table and into Caleb’s lap. “Oh, are you _shedding_? Maybe don’t do that around Fjord, _ja_?”

Frumpkin meows, and Caleb rolls his eyes. It’s super weird watching them at it, so eventually Beau cuts in and says, “I got you a beer, by the way. Dunno if you wanted anything else.”

“A beer is fine,” says Caleb, taking a sip.

Beau props her elbow up onto the surface of the table, taking a sip of her own beer and giving Caleb a once-over. His little reveal makes sense, honestly, now that she thinks about it—why go to the lengths of killing off someone’s parents, if you weren’t trying to make sure that person would be a ghost story? And molding someone from a young age into the shape of a torturer and executioner—what was that they used to say at the Cobalt Soul, sometimes? The younger the initiate, the more chances the lesson had in sticking in their heads. Stands to reason the Assembly’s the same way. Stands to reason the Scourgers are the same way.

She leans in close, lowers her voice, and says, “Were you trained to be a Scourger?”

Caleb’s brow furrows, like he’s recalling the last time he heard the word. Then he lets out a breath and says, “We didn’t hear that term often. My friends and I, we were known as _Vollstrecker_ instead— _Scourger_ was a more informal, improper term, and our master was never one for going against propriety.” He smiles, but there’s no humor, no warmth. It’s as cold as the kiss of a knife against bare skin.

And isn’t that all kinda of fucked up. “You were a fucking—no, you were in _training_ to be a fucking royal assassin,” Beau whispers. “That’s pretty fucked up. And Molly—what’s Molly?”

“I,” says Caleb, uncertainly, fiddling with his sleeve, “I suppose I was. I never—I never knew anything about the _Vollstrecker_ program until I was in it. And as for Mollymauk,” he clasps his hands together and oh, hey, they’re _shaking_ , “it’s likely he was one of the lesser troops, being trained to work in tandem with the more senior assassins. This person in the town center that Jester and Yasha saw—I can’t say anything with confidence, considering how brief it was, but from the letter’s contents, they were to become a fully-fledged member of the Scourgers.”

“So graduation night, huh?” Beau asks.

“Something like that, _ja_ ,” says Caleb, “but more like a test run. Just to see if their conditioning will hold under a longer, more stressful period of time.”

“You seem pretty sure this person’s in the same boat as Molly is,” Beau says.

“We never wore black,” says Caleb, simply. “As apprentices we wore white. When we were on assignment, we wore whatever could get us through the back door into a heretic’s mansion. Only _die lebenden Toten_ would wear a color like black, when a good Disguise Self spell would have sufficed.”

Try as she might, Beau can’t imagine Molly drained out of color. Before he came back he’d been larger than life, a brightly-grinning hurricane of colors. He’s not larger than life anymore, but he’s still colorful as fuck, a burst of eye-hurting colors strolling down the street. She tries to picture him again in the dark, in black and in rags, and shies away from them as soon as they come to mind. It just—isn’t something she can see on him.

“How did you know about them?” Caleb asks, snapping Beau out of her thoughts. “Most people have never even heard of Scourgers.”

“I’m from an order of monks whose thing is basically collecting information,” Beau shoots back. “Although, okay, granted, they always thought the Scourgers were propaganda material. Boogeymen you’d use to scare rebels into behaving, y’know? Ghost stories you tell at night trying to scare other kids around a campfire.” She leans back, her chair tipping back with her a little, her foot hooking around a table leg to keep herself from overbalancing. “Guess I never really thought they could be _real_ ,” she says. “And sure as shit I didn’t realize you were in training to become one, but it makes a lot of very fucked-up sense.”

And he’d just been a _kid_ , on top of all of that. Beau remembers what she’d been doing as a kid: flogging off her dad’s wine for a few extra bucks, kissing girls in backalleys, being a disappointment. Sure, her childhood and adolescence were fucked the hell up, but at least she wasn’t being trained to be a _royal assassin_.

Then again, before that, Caleb had pretty good parents who were _proud_ of him, so it’s not as if he doesn’t have something she envies him for.

Caleb looks up to meet her eyes, and says, “What else did you hear?”

“Not a whole lot else,” says Beau, with a shrug. “Royal assassins, king’s own secret weapons—a couple of us in the Reserve used to joke that some really weird deaths were really murders carried out by a Scourger, but we didn’t really believe that.”

Caleb stares at her, his hand going still, and says, “He was _being literal_?”

“Wait, you didn’t know you were gonna serve the real actual king?” Beau asks. “You didn’t—What in the _fuck_ , man?”

Caleb leans forward and hisses, “I thought he was just being metaphorical! He said we would serve King Dwendal’s interests and I thought it was like how the warmages and the Assembly served his interests, I didn’t think we would be serving him and carrying out his _personal_ orders—”

“How long have you been thinking that?” Beau whispers, shaking her head and glancing around. No one’s paying attention to their hushed conference, thankfully, although one of the more drunken patrons has shifted a little in his seat, mumbling to himself. She doesn’t bother to strain her ears trying to catch his words.

“I’ve thought it since I was _sixteen_.”

“Oh my god,” says Beau. “Did he not bother to like—orient you, or something?”

“He just gave us a small spiel that we didn’t pay attention to and tossed us into our first lesson,” Caleb whispers. “We were _very excited_ , we wanted to _learn_ , I was barely thinking straight.”

“Do you think,” says Beau, a horrible possibility occurring to her, “shit, Caleb, do you think the king’s interested in Lynbroke?”

“I don’t think so,” says Caleb, shaking his head a little to shake off the disorientation from having his view of past events fucking shaken. “I think all his interests are a bit occupied at the moment by the war on Xhorhas.”

Beau drums her fingers on the table. “Is he interested in us?” she asks.

Caleb hesitates, his eyes darting away from her. His hands come up to rub at his shoulders. “I think so,” he says, finally. “At the very least he knows that we won the Victory Pit, so long ago, and we can assume he has some idea about the group that walked into Xhorhas and gave them a magical artifact of untold power. Also, we have a Xhorhasian in our midst.”

How the fuck are they not dead, _gods_. Then she remembers: the guy Molly was with had _tried_ to kill them. “Think your old classmate knew?” she asks. “The one who brought Molly back to us, I mean.”

“No,” says Caleb, shaking his head. “No, Yonnah was not that good, although he aspired to be. So far as I can tell, he just wanted to capture Yasha to impress Ikithon, and maybe then have him put in a good word with the king.”

“What, did he _want_ to be a Scourger?” Beau asks, snorting out a laugh.

Caleb doesn’t laugh, just looks down at his hands. “He was very patriotic and very ambitious, in school,” he says, quietly. “If being a _Vollstrecker_ meant he would directly serve the king, he would have taken every opportunity presented to become one.” He sighs, and resumes stroking over Frumpkin’s back, fingers buried in his cat’s orange fur, looking down and away from Beau. “The two of us, we never did get along. He was jealous of me, because I had the attention of an archmage, and he would try to undermine me and my friends whenever he could.”

“Look at it this way,” says Beau, “he’s dead as a doornail now. What I’m more worried about is—what about _you_? You said it yourself, if this Ikithon finds out you’re still kicking, he’ll kill you.”

“He would cut my stomach open and smear my guts across the walls, actually,” says Caleb.

“That’s the same fucking thing, just _way more graphic_ ,” says Beau, pushing her beer away as bile rises in her throat. She swallows it down, and it drops into the pit of her stomach, a heavy, leaden weight. “What are you going to do?” _Are you going to run?_ she doesn’t ask. She expects him to say that he might, or to prevaricate, or to just not answer the question, shifty bastard that he is.

She doesn’t expect him to say, “My goose has been cooked since Xhorhas, if not before. I’m staying with all of you—we are friends, aren’t we?” God, his voice even wavers a little, when he asks.

“We’re friends,” Beau assures him. “We’re not gonna kick you out ‘cause your goose is cooked, man. If we did we’d probably have to kick Fjord out too, I bet he’s on the outs with that patron of his for leaving the job half-done.”

Caleb huffs out a tired, humorless laugh. “I suppose,” he says. “Yes. I’m staying here, with the rest of you.”

“Strength in numbers and all that,” says Beau. A stair creaks, and Beau turns to watch Molly coming downstairs and winces. “Why’d he buy those _pants_ , they’re so shiny they’re hurting my damn eyes,” she mutters, turning back to look at Caleb.

Caleb is, of fucking course, staring at Molly with his eyes full of wonder, his mouth slightly parted. His hands have gone still, and his attention is laser-focused on one purple tiefling in eye-searingly glittery pants and a gaudy-ass, patched-up coat. It’s a goddamn miracle he doesn’t explode of feelings right here and now, hallelujah, praise Ioun and the Archeart and the Traveler and the Luxon and all the other gods while Beau’s at it.

She kicks Caleb’s shin. It takes him a full five seconds to blink, and look at her with great reluctance.

“Close your _mouth_ , you’ll catch flies,” she says, just as Molly saunters over to their table. Said ostentatious-ass glittery-as-shit tiefling pouts, actually _pouts_ , when he counts the tankards present. “Should’ve written something down if you wanted a drink,” Beau tells him. “You wanna take a seat? Just don’t steal my beer.”

He shakes his head, and jerks a thumb over to the stairs. Then he taps two fingers over his throat, and opens his mouth before shutting it again.

Caleb’s quicker than Beau is, this time, and says, “Oh, did you decide to go with someone?”

“Yeah,” says Molly. “Yasha and I aren’t allowed near either the Crownsguard’s barracks or the exclusive magic library, so we’re just going to Twiggy-sit. And, not that talking with you isn’t fun and all, but I,” he falters and looks away, and it’s weird, seeing him hesitate, “I miss talking with Yasha. So could you do the thing?”

“Of course,” says Caleb. “Are you sure?”

“I trust you,” says Molly, meeting his eyes. Oh, god. The amount of eye-sex that’s going on here is just— _no_. Beau, in order to preserve her sanity, looks quickly down at her beer and starts chugging.

She hears Caleb softly murmuring something in Zemnian, then Molly letting out an audible, relieved sigh. She hears Molly walking away, and puts her tankard down just in time to see him walking up the stairs, a pep in his step that hadn’t been there before.

“You know it’s really fucked up,” she says to Caleb, “that he’s so goddamn ecstatic just to be able to talk to Yasha?”

Caleb hunches in on himself. “ _Ja,_ ” he says, “I’ve been there.”

“What, you got hit with a spell that made you unable to talk?”

It’s just a rhetorical question, which is why it’s disturbing as hell when Caleb says, “Once or twice, as a punishment. But that is not what I meant.” He nods to the space where Molly had been, and says, “Did you know, when I realized I could do whatever without my teacher watching for any mistakes—I stole as much incense and charcoal as I could, so I could summon Frumpkin.” Said cat stretches out, places his paws on Caleb’s shirt and meows gently. “Because I _could_ , and it felt so, so good just to cast that spell at all.”

“So,” says Beau, after a moment, trying to find some light in this little horrible window into Caleb’s past, “in this analogy, we’re the magic cat?”

“Something like that,” says Caleb.

Beau levels a look at him, and says, “Get better at analogies, Caleb.”


	51. ghosts and clouds and nameless things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from the Mountain Goats’ “Maybe Sprout Wings”.

An interlude, as our heroes come together once more and split ways:

Verrin catches sight of the black-clad stranger by accident.

She hasn’t seen hide or hair of the Mighty Nein since she pinned Beau to a grimy wall in an alleyway, and in all honesty, she’s fine with that. Beau’s attractive and she wouldn’t mind a good fuck, sure, but the woman comes with too many strings attached to bigger things for Verrin to want to mess with. She’s fucked with bigger things before. She’s learned her lesson there.

Well. Mostly, anyway.

God, she’d _missed_ Goyong. She hadn’t realized it until they’d met back up, and he was as earnest as ever, the same way he’d been before—well, _before_. It had hurt to look at him, because once upon a time she’d been the same way. A little more sarcastic than he was, sure, but she’d been earnest. They’d wanted to save Lynbroke, her and Janie and ‘Yong, no matter what that meant.

There’s a great big gulf between the person Verrin had been then, happy and earnest and willing to work to make things _better_ , and the person she is now. Seeing Goyong had thrown that into relief, clear as daylight.

She wants the mists back. She wants the fog back, wants to scrub the daylight out so she doesn’t have to look and know how much of a giant fucking fuck-up she is. And she _knows_. She knows, already. Even through the fog she can make out the shape of it. But she doesn’t want to see it any clearer.

So. Here she is, boozing it up on her back porch. She’s not the only one, there’s a bunch of other shitheads who’ve done way too much day-drinking stumbling past her, giggling, but they’re all dressed in bright colors and talking about the fucking festival. Fuck the festival, she wants to get _drunk_.

She tilts her head back, pours the bottle’s contents down her throat. She barely even notices the burn on the way down anymore.

But she does notice the black-clad figure jumping onto the next rooftop, and she puts the bottle down and squints up. “The fuck,” she mutters to herself, standing up and squinting before she catches herself and cusses, sitting back down. “Goddammit—‘s’probably just a trick of the light,” she mutters to herself.

But the figure emerges again, their hooded head turning about. Verrin gets to her feet, narrowing her eyes, and steps off her porch, her bottle in hand. One step, and then the other, and she steps into the shadows of the alley, pulling the darkness towards herself to muffle her footsteps, keep her hidden from sight.

The figure jumps again, and Verrin follows.

All the lore she could find on this, back when she was just some dumbfuck hick trying to dabble in things bigger than herself, back when she thought she could watch Janie’s back even at the Academy, had named people like her _blood hunters_. She hunts now, taking out a vial from her jacket and biting down on the cork, pulling it out with her teeth before she downs the contents as easy as she would with booze.

It burns worse than the worst moonshine she’s ever had does, lights her throat and her insides on fucking _fire_ as it warps her from the inside out, and she welcomes it with barely a wince. Her eyes grow sharper, the walls in her mind against magic grow tougher, and hindsight gets even fucking worse, because the shitty thing about this particular mutagen is that it doesn’t let her _stay fog-blind_.

She should’ve stayed on her porch. She should’ve done a lot of things, but there’s no backing down now. She keeps as close an eye as possible on the figure, which is hard enough to do even with her little trick.

Eventually the figure stops. Verrin presses herself against a wall, the shadows covering her from sight, and watches as the figure draws their hood back. Dark hair, unkempt and ragged, spills out past pointed ears, and the figure turns to look around. His face isn’t quite as elven as his ears might suggest, but his eyes are grey and dead, dead, _dead_.

Verrin bites back the urge to curse out loud. Fuck. Fuck, shit, _balls_. She knows this guy. Astrid had introduced her and Janie to him, once, had called him a bloodhound, a consolation prize for someone she had really wanted who had slipped from her grasp. _He was to be executed when he was caught, but that was too merciful,_ Astrid had said, her eyes and voice cold like ice. _This is justice done._

“What was his name?” Janie had asked, afterwards, while they were examining their bruises and their new scars, talking excitedly about new lessons, what they could do now. “What was he in for? I don’t—I don’t feel _good_ , around him.”

“Honestly, I couldn’t ask, he was drilling the shit out of me,” Verrin had said.

“Could you look?”

And what could Verrin do, right, but just what her best friend asked of her? So she had looked, dug deep into the Empire’s records.

She’d found the name Jurrel, and his crimes: heresy, murder, resisting arrest. He’d killed a Crownsguard before they took him in, displayed some unnatural abilities to do with his blood. Someone had written on the file: _recommend sentence be given to Vollstrecker, we may yet find some use for him and, if they ever resurface, his group._

And Verrin had thought it—

What had she thought of it? There’s a blank period there, pages ripped out of the chapter that she can’t track down. It itches at the back of her mind, a mystery she cannot quite grasp.

She grits her teeth, and presses herself as flat as possible against the wall. This is too big for her. This is too much. She can’t hope to go up against Jurrel, of all people, can’t hope to go up against whoever’s brought him here, for whatever purpose. It’s not in her power. She shouldn’t even be here at all.

Jurrel stops, and turns in her direction. Verrin’s breath catches in her throat and stays there, her heart hammering in her ears. If she’s found out, he will kill her. If she’s found out he will gut her like a fish and leave her to bleed and bleed and bleed on the cold, dirty cobblestones.

Verrin is many things, but she doesn’t want to die. Not really. Sometimes she entertains the idea, but right here, right now, just feet away from a bringer of death, she realizes: she wants to _live_. Her life is nothing good but she wants to hold on to it, as long as possible.

Jurrel turns his head away from her. Blessedly, miraculously, he walks away, melting into the shadows with an ease Verrin almost envies. Almost, because she knows the price he must’ve paid, to be so at ease with his abilities. Almost, because she’s seen the blood hunter that Astrid had brought into the fold after her, how fucked up he is, how easy it would be to push him over the edge into a panic. Almost, because fucked up as she is, fucked up as that purple bastard is, at least they’re both free.

How long has Jurrel been under the Assembly’s control? Is there anything left of the man he used to be? What is he doing here, in Lynbroke, of all places? What does the Assembly want here, that they would send him?

Verrin waits, and counts her heartbeats. When she reaches thirty, she peels herself away from the wall, and walks down the other way.

She doesn’t look back.

\--

So a little gnome girl, a tiefling ex-carnie, and a huge, pale woman walk into a confectioner’s tent and ask for—

“I’m sorry,” says the blonde elven confectioner, clad in a dazzlingly candy-colored coat that Yasha’s caught Molly blatantly staring at, “you want a _what_?”

“The biggest jawbreaker you have!” Twiggy proclaims. “And lots of chocolate!”

“This is probably a bad idea,” Yasha says reflectively, not making any effort to stop Twiggy. She doesn’t think she can, honestly, not when Twiggy looks like she’s on a roll. And if Yasha’s being honest, she wants to see what happens next.

 _this is a wonderful ideya and we shud encorej it,_ Molly writes. Probably he’d figured this would lead somewhere amusing, when he’d spotted this colorful tent somewhere in the more affluent districts, with a delicately hand-lettered sign out in front.

Yasha nibbles on the lollipop she’d bought for herself, before they unleashed Twiggy on the poor shopkeeper. It sucks a little that they didn’t bring Jester here, but she’d been adamant about tagging along with Beau and Caleb, standing lookout just in case.

Well, she supposes she’ll just tell Jester about this tent later.

“This is really sweet,” she says to Molly. “Is there anything else here that looks like it’d be pretty good?”

“Everything here looks like it’d taste good,” says Molly. “Well. Except for the black licorice. And I’m not sure on the toffee.”

“Black licorice tastes pretty good,” says Yasha. “Doesn’t it?”

“To _you_ , maybe,” Molly mutters, before he bites down hard on the chocolate bar he’d gotten for himself. They’re standing near the entrance of the tent, satisfied enough with their own purchases that they don’t need to delve as deep as Twiggy currently is, basically mugging the poor confectioner for more sugar.

“Maybe you just haven’t tried it enough,” Yasha huffs.

Molly—doesn’t answer. Too late, Yasha remembers: he can’t answer, not unless she asks him something, anything. The bubble pops, just like that, and she hunches in on herself a little, self-conscious as Molly glances at her, frowning.

“Sorry,” she says, softly. “I—forgot. About, well, y’know.” And she taps her own throat. “Don’t you mind it?”

“Of course I mind it,” says Molly. “There’s a lot of things I mind about this mess, but I can’t change any of it.” He sighs, sounding almost defeated as he continues, “So I just have to make the best of a shitty situation, and hope we can fix this soon. Without anyone getting hurt.”

She wants to tell him that no one is going to get hurt, but that’d be a piss-poor lie, and they’d both know it. It would be a disservice, to lie to him about that, even though she kind of wishes she could. Besides, he’s already lying to himself.

So instead she just says, “We are going to fix this. And if anyone from the Assembly gets in our way,” she shrugs, “we will kill them, and give you their things. Are you all right with that?”

“They’d kill you,” says Molly, distantly, rubbing at his arm and glancing nervously over his shoulder, out the tent flap serving as the entrance to this candy-colored, sugary paradise. Then he shakes his head and lets out a breath. “You know how Caleb always seemed to be trying not to attract a whole lot of attention?” he asks.

“Yes, and you thought he was just overreacting,” says Yasha. “What’s changed?”

“He wasn’t,” says Molly. “They’re in town, and even though I know they’re not looking for me, even though I _know_ they’re busy taking care of some other shit in town, even though—all I can think of is what they did, what they could do.” He shivers, tugging his new blue coat closer around himself, nails digging into the fine material. “You’re good at killing things, I know that. Anyone else, I’d bet on you, Yasha, I know you and the Nein’ll come out on top, even when things look like they’re going terribly.”

“So why wouldn’t you bet on us against them?” Yasha asks.

Molly barks out a hollow laugh. “They’re powerful people,” he says. “ _She’s_ a powerful person. Intyre was a dumbfuck who got too big for his britches, and he almost had you. Astrid knows exactly what she’s capable of.”

“I do too,” says Yasha, folding her arms. “She’s as human as Caleb. Maybe hardier, but we’ve taken worse than her and lived.” She sighs, and looks down at Molly, who’s rubbing his hand over the side of his neck, chewing on his bottom lip. “Why are you so worried?” she asks.

“I don’t want to lose you again,” Molly says, and Yasha sucks in a sharp breath, the words a knife sinking into her heart. “Least of all to Astrid and her friends in the Assembly. I think,” he hesitates then, and looks up at her with red eyes full of fear, “I’d do damn near _anything_ if it meant keeping you and everyone else safe. And I can do some terrible, terrible things now.”

“I can, too,” says Yasha, but her heart cracks anyway. This is her best friend, who’s only ever been kind to her, who bought her a book on manners to pull a grin out of her when she’d had a bad day. She’s never known him to be able to do truly terrible things. “You aren’t going to lose me, Mollymauk. Or any of us.” She reaches for his hand, brushing her thumb over his knuckles as he turns towards her, swaying as if he wants to bury his face in her shirt, as if he wants to go. “Do you believe that?”

“I’m trying to,” says Molly. “I would really rather not, but if I have to—if I _have_ to, I know I’d—do something terrible to myself, probably.”

“What do you mean?” Yasha asks.

Molly’s breath hisses out between his teeth, and he looks up at her. “I don’t know,” he says, and his tone carries the note of a lie. Yasha’s guts twist into knots—Molly’s lied to her before, but those lies were cheerfully fantastic. He hadn’t been really, truly trying to hide something then, because she had seen him at his worst, known everything he could give her.

Only that had been then, and she realizes suddenly: he’s been gone seven months. She hasn’t seen him at his worst anymore.

“If you do know,” she says, “you would tell me, right?”

Molly smiles, eyes watery. “Yash,” he says, looking down and away, at her hands cupping his, “I don’t want to lose you too.”

It doesn’t sound like an answer, at least not at first.

Then it sinks in when she sees his shoulders shake, hears the hitched breaths as his other hand comes up over hers. His grip tightens, like if he lets go she’ll disappear like smoke, like stormclouds on a sunny day.

“Oh,” she breathes. “Oh, _Molly._ ”


	52. i wish that we could give it a go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Kate Nash's "Nicest Thing". just one section today! this week was pretty bad, writing-wise. (Nott and Jester are lots of fun to write, though.)
> 
> I'll be taking next week off so I can write Widomauk Week stuff (AAAAAAA), but we'll be right back on June 12! just in time for Independence Day here in the Philippines.

Jester stays away from the barracks, this time around. Instead, on one of the streets leading to the town square, she finds a little bookstore and indulges herself and the Traveler, swapping the books all around so the spines aren’t visible. At least she tries to, anyway.

“I can’t believe we’re banned forever from that bookstore,” she grumbles, as Nott carries what few purchases she had managed to make before the owner had caught Jester halfway through her prank. “It wasn’t even that bad! I just turned some of her books around, I didn’t even get started on anything more.” The storeowner had also called her _hellspawn_ , but that’s something Jester tends to hear sometimes anyway. It doesn’t hurt as much to hear it, anymore, mostly because—well, she’s fought a _dragon_ , once you’ve done that it’s pretty hard to listen to some grumpy shopkeeper calling you names.

“Right, that was pretty grumpy of her,” Nott says. “I swiped something off her by the way, hold on.” She shifts her supplies over to one arm, then digs around in her pockets and pulls something out: a pretty golden ring with a sapphire gem that glints in the light. “I don’t know if it’ll fit,” Nott says, apologetic, as Jester reverently plucks the ring from her and holds it up to the sun, “but I figured it might look better on you than it did on her.”

Jester slips the ring onto her pinky, and beams as it settles on top of the two other rings she’s already wearing. “It’s beautiful,” she says sincerely, bending down to peck the very top of Nott’s head. She giggles at the surprised squawk. “You were right! It’s way more my color than it was hers.”

“I’m always right,” says Nott, sagely, and they walk on up to a small, ramshackle stall selling a variety of booklets with illustrations of Lady Margaret on their covers. In some, she’s striking a heroic pose. In others, she’s just about to kiss a really cute boy. One of two cute boys, anyway.

She picks up one with the muscular blonde human on the cover, from a pile of vaguely similar-looking pamphlets. The Lady Margaret clings to him on this one, her shirt off her shoulders, his shirt all the way open and his pants dipping down _juuuuuust_ enough. She flips through it and grins—oh, this is _very_ promising. And explicit!

“Good choice,” says the vendor, a wizened little dwarven woman with a thick white beard, on a rocking chair behind the piles and piles of hand-drawn pamphlets. “The Summer Knight Stevron’s one of my _favorites_ , y’know? Don’t know why he doesn’t sell as much as his old pal the Shadow Knight Jamrys.” She sniffs imperiously at the slightly larger pile of booklets to the other side, the ones that depict a slender half-elf man with dark hair and dark eyes, and skin tinged slightly purple.

“Who?” says Jester. She picks one up and starts to flip through the pages, and— _well_. She knows what she’s going to read out loud tonight.

“Lady Margaret’s lovers, girl,” says the old woman. “The Summer and Shadow Knights? Stevron and Jamrys, the knights she loved and lost?”

“Are those really their names?” Jester asks. “I thought they were like, forgotten forever or something.”

“Just ‘cause it’s not in the books at Lady Margaret’s Hall don’t mean it’s not true,” says the old woman, biting into a piece of black licorice. “Just means the higher-ups don’t want you to know about it.” She leans in closer, and whispers, “You know, Jamrys was half- _drow_ , so I can understand why they’re real keen on saying he’s been lost and forgotten to history.”

“Oh my _gosh_ ,” whispers Jester, realizing—this would be such a _scandal_ if true. “How much for both pamphlets?” she asks excitedly, rummaging in her pockets for some change.

“Never had someone go and buy both of ‘em before,” says the old woman, raising an eyebrow in surprise, “but, hm, let’s say: five gold?”

“That’s highway robbery, that is,” Nott pipes up, all of a sudden.

The old lady narrows her eyes at Nott, and then slowly climbs down from the chair to haul herself forward, her bones creaking so loudly that Jester almost preps a Cure Wounds spell just in case. Fortunately the old lady seems to have it well in hand, glaring down at Nott from behind a pile of pamphlets. “And what exactly are you?” she asks, squinting.

Jester steps just a little bit closer to Nott, ready to pick her up and run. They’ll just have to chance it in the town’s center, if this goes south.

“I’m Holly,” says Nott, her voice pitching up an octave or so, “Wood. Holly Wood. I’m a halfling.”

“Very odd-looking halfling you are,” says the old lady.

“She was the victim of a terrible attack,” says Jester, improvising. “I _just_ barely managed to save her!”

“If it wasn’t for her I would be _dead_!” Nott half-shrieks. Nott is maybe not the best actor there is, but she’s the most enthusiastic actor, and she catches on fast. “I was bleeding out into the dirt and sand and then,” she flails an arm out and smacks Jester in the hip by accident, “an angel! A miracle in tiefling form came to save me!”

The old lady raises an eyebrow, looking between the two of them.

“I saved her life and now we are the best detective agency in Wildemount,” Jester says.

“The _very best_ ,” Nott stresses.

“Sure,” says the old lady, but she seems to believe them so far, tottering back to her rocking chair and climbing up onto it. “But it’s still five gold!”

“That’s _still_ highway robbery,” says Nott. “For these things? The paper’s so thin the smallest breeze could rip them apart! We’ll pay you two gold and not a copper more!”

“Nott,” starts Jester, “I can just—”

“Four gold,” says the old woman.

Nott holds up a finger and says to Jester, “I used to do this all the time. Watch.” She folds her arms and narrows her eyes at the vendor, and says, “For this shit? I could just sit right here and copy the whole thing out, drawings and all!”

“That’s _theft_ ,” snaps the old lady.

“Theft would be if I just stole these things,” Nott retorts. “What I just said, that’s just _copying_. Two gold.”

“Three!”

“Three and two silvers.”

“Three and _five_ , you horrible little weasel.”

“ _Hey,_ ” says Jester, bristling on Nott’s behalf, but Nott’s practically bouncing on her feet as she grabs the edge of the counter and stares the old vendor dead in the eye.

“Three and four and not a copper more!” she says.

“Then I suppose I’ll just bid you a good day, then,” the old dwarven lady spits, narrowing her eyes and glaring Nott down. Somehow.

Jester sighs, and puts five gold down on the counter. “It was really nice of you to try to get me a discount, No— _Holly_ ,” she says, as the vendor immediately scrambles forward as fast as her creaky bones can carry her. “But I think you met your match.”

Nott lets out an indignant huff, and unscrews the cap on her flask. “I almost had her!” she huffs, as Jester takes the two romantic-looking booklets. She takes a sip as they walk away, and then screws the cap back on.

“She was on the _ropes_ ,” Jester agrees. “And then she got pushed just that teeny bit too far, but you had her that time!”

“Yeah, I’m a little rusty,” says Nott, contemplatively. “Yeza’s really better than me at haggling with people, honestly. He can really turn on the charm when he wants to.”

Jester hums. An elven dancer spins past them, with laughing eyes and a delighted grin, her skirt flaring out as she twirls. Another dancer, a half-orc with green and brown skin, steps by them and lifts her up into the air with ease. Jester blinks, and just for a second, she could swear she sees herself and Fjord.

She sighs, and looks to Nott. “How did you know Yeza was the one for you?” she asks.

“What?” Nott says.

Jester taps the tips of her index fingers together and says, “Well, you guys got _married_ and had a _kid_. So at some point you knew he was _the_ one for you, but—well, when was that?” In all the books she’s read, it’s always been through some fate-defying stunt that the lady realizes she’s fallen in love with the knight, or through a grand gesture of love that makes the merchant’s daughter finally see the rugged mercenary for the kindness secretly inside him, or—it’s _always_ something huge.

Nott shrugs, and says, “It’s—well, so we were at a cousin’s wedding, and they’d brought in some really good imported wine. All the way from _Marquet_ , and that’s how you know that’s the good shit.” She kicks a rock down the sidewalk. “So the both of us didn’t really have anyone to talk to, except each other, and we were pretty nervous around each other, so we just—kept taking shots instead.”

Oh, god, they puked up on each other.

“And when we had enough courage to, y’know, actually _talk_ , we slurred _everything_.” Nott chuckles, then looks up at the sky with a small smile. “I almost hurled on him, but then he took my hand and led me to the bathroom, and he held my hair back while I threw up. And then I held his glasses while _he_ threw up. There was—really a lot of throwing up, it was pretty gross.”

Oh, okay, they didn’t actually throw up on each other. Still, it’s a different picture from what Jester had formed in her head. “What happened next?” she asks.

“We slept together,” says Nott. “Not that way! We literally just slept together. I think we spooned.” She reaches up to twist a lock of hair around her finger, a simple band of gold glinting in the light. What little Jester can see of her friend’s green cheeks have flushed a darker shade. “I woke up first, and I saw his face. He was drooling into my hair, his sideburns were _still_ ridiculous and awful and creeping onto his cheeks, and his glasses were sort of digging into his face a little bit, mashing into his eyelid. Do you know what I thought?”

“He needed to shave those sideburns?” Jester guesses.

“Well, yeah, that was my third thought,” Nott says. “But the first thing I thought was that I wanted this to be the sight I woke up next to, forever and always.” She tucks her hands into her pockets, and looks up at Jester, what little can be seen of her smile behind her mask a bright and beautiful thing. “That’s how I knew,” she says. “I suppose that’s how you always know, really—when you wake up next to someone, and they’ve got ridiculous bedhead, and they’re drooling into the pillow, and you still want to kiss them every morning.”

Jester looks down at her hands, and thinks of Fjord kissing her cheek once, just once—while they were taking care of some hook-armed monsters, outside a little village on the borders between the Empire and Xhorhas. She wouldn’t mind if he did that for her every morning. She wouldn’t mind it very much at all.

“How do you know if a boy likes you?” she asks.

Nott stares up at her. “Jessie?”

“Yeah?”

“Who’s this boy so I can _talk to him_?” Her hand disappears into the pockets of her cloak, which means she’s resting it on the hilt of a dagger or the handle of a vial.

Jester rolls her eyes, and says, “Don’t threaten him! We haven’t even _done_ anything yet, and really I don’t even know if he likes me that way, you know?” She rocks back on her heels and sighs, gustily. “How do you know if someone likes you, Nott?” she asks.

“If they kissed you and it meant something, that’s how,” says Nott, sagely.

“But I don’t know if it meant something to him,” says Jester, twirling a lock of blue hair around her finger. “I mean, the first time he was saving my life, and the second time it was just on the cheek.”

Nott chews on her bottom lip, as if mulling this dilemma over. Then she says, “You could play hard to get. Act cool and casual around him—if he _really_ wants you, he’ll track you down and ask you why you’ve been so casual, and you can ask him how he likes it!” She pauses, then squints up at Jester. “Unless it’s Caleb. In which case, I think I have some bad news for you.”

“It’s not Caleb!” Jester huffs. “He’s in love with _Molly_.”

“Is it Molly?” Nott guesses.

Jester shakes her head. “I think right now that would be shitty to him, he can’t even talk without someone telling him to,” she says. “Also, _he_ loves _Caleb_.”

“Is it Beau?” Nott asks. “No, wait, you said _he_.”

“I mean, Beau’s pretty cute,” Jester says, tapping her chin thoughtfully, “but she kind of looks around a _lot_ , she’s not really looking for anything more than a good time. She’s been wanting to get into Verrin’s pants since we first hired her, and I think you said she and Keg had a fling? That’s not what _I’m_ looking for.” She pauses, then adds, “Also, I think she’s looking at Yasha for something _besides_ a good time, but she doesn’t totally know it for sure just yet.”

“What about Deuces?” Nott asks.

“He’s never kissed anyone before, he told me when we were on watch one time,” says Jester. “Anyway, he’s not the one I’ve got an eye on, either.”

“...it’s Fjord, isn’t it,” says Nott, and oh, she’s so sharp it kind of stings a little, even though Jester can’t really hear any malice in her voice, just resignation. She isn’t surprised, Fjord and Nott like to bicker a lot.

Jester looks down at her feet and scuffs the toe of her shoe against the pavement. “He’s one of my best friends,” she says, softly. “And we’ve saved each other’s lives like, a lot.” She sighs. “I just wish I could _tell_ him, you know? But what if he doesn’t love me back the same way?”

“His loss,” says Nott, with a shrug. “And it still stands, by the way. The best way to catch a boy’s attention, especially if you think that boy likes you, is to play hard to get. Move away. Act like you don’t care if he kisses anyone else!” She slams her fist into an open palm, and triumphantly says, “He’s not gonna be able to stop thinking about you for very long! He’ll want to solve the _mystery_ of you!”

“Ooh,” says Jester, almost bouncing with glee at the sheer genius of the plan, “so I have to make him work for it? That’s a great idea, Nott!”

“I have lots of them,” says Nott, and there’s a hint of a grin behind her porcelain mask. “Hey, stop here for a second, we need to keep away from the barracks.”

Jester stops, and looks around. The crowds have grown thicker here, families and friends pouring out of the street and into the open space of the town’s center, chattering and laughing and dancing. If she stands on her tiptoes and squints, she thinks she can see the band she asked to play earlier, playing another song.

Her gaze goes up, towards the rooftops. She doesn’t see the black-clad figure around right now, but she’s not entirely sure if that means anything with what they know now of the Scourgers. Secret royal assassins don’t tend to stick out as a rule, after all. She wonders suddenly if they’re in the crowd somewhere, if they know she’s there, if they’re just waiting for the right moment to come up and—

She shivers. Is this how Caleb feels like, all the time? Is this how Molly feels like now? It’s not a good feeling at all, it crawls up her skin like bugs creeping up on her in the night.

Nott’s hand reaches up to take hers. “I don’t see anything either,” she says, softly, “and I’ve got pretty good eyes.”

Jester exhales, her shoulders growing lighter somehow. Nott’s with her. They’re going to be okay. “If neither of us can see anything, maybe there’s nothing there,” she says, brightly. It’s not entirely true, but she squeezes Nott’s hand and hopes it sounds convincing enough. “Hey, can you message Caleb right now? Let him know we’re here, and waiting?”

“Sure,” says Nott, taking out her copper wire and straightening out between her fingers. Jester’s eyes stray away from her, and for a moment—

She thinks she sees blonde hair in the crowd, and pointed ears, and white if slightly stained robes. But as fast as it came, it disappears, swallowed up by the crush.


	53. bring a little spark to this cold blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from Michael Schulte's "The Maze".

There’s a parade outside the candy tent.

Molly’s first outside when he hears the shouting, always a little bit curious when it comes to commotions. Before him, the crowd parts before a parade float like the waves parting for a ship, letting the float pass down the road unimpeded by such petty concerns as people in the way.

And it’s—certainly an expensive-looking float, far more than anything the circus could put together whenever they rolled into town and could afford to splurge a little for the procession. It’s large enough that it easily takes up most of the street, requiring the masses to press closer to each other on either side of it, and the back is an ornate display of shining brass scales and a reasonable facsimile of a brass dragon’s head, with stairs on either side. On top of the head is a podium, and a man dressed in shimmering white silks with an elegant ermine cloak thrown over one shoulder stands behind it, waving to the crowds.

In front of him, seven stairs below, are dancers, clad in shimmering green and blue and red. They spin and stomp and step to a frenetic tempo, the ladies’ skirts flying out as their partners lift them into the air and twirl them about. To keep them from dancing right off the stage, railings have been installed, with green and red flowers twining all around them. Another flight of seven stairs leads to a band on a platform decorated with roses and ivy, and jutting out of that platform is a snake’s head, fangs in full view.

“What’s going on?” Twiggy asks as she comes up to Molly, a bag of sweets in her hand. Molly shrugs, and bends down to lift her up off the ground, holding her close. “Ooh, that’s a pretty nice float! Hey, do you hear that noise?”

He nods. He can hear that sound, like a rumbling purr but louder. Like the automaton back in Hupperdook, he thinks, and he instinctively glances around checking for knives. Nothing sharp around here, except the sword on Yasha’s back as she’s coming out of the tent, frowning.

“What’s going on?” Yasha asks.

“Someone’s campaigning,” says Molly, nodding to the float. Now that it’s come close enough, he can see a bard strumming a lute and singing, _Rojen’s a friend to all, Rojen’s here to break your fall, Rojen’s bite is one to fear—_

It’s such a nice, catchy song, to go with such a lovely float. But all Molly can think of is the sound of some poor bastard getting beaten behind a closed door.

He looks at the bald, thin man behind the podium, sees him smiling genially as he waves to the crowd, cheering for him. The light glints off his cufflinks, off the shimmering scales of his clothes and his float, and he looks almost unreal, like a banshee or a vampire walking under the blazing sun. Molly wants to scream, _Can’t any of you see? For fuck’s sake, look at his damn float! There’s a snake! Snakes will bite anyone they damn well please! Just ask the poor bastards calling themselves the Dogs of Hell!_

The Crownsguard walk ahead of his float now, pushing the unwashed masses aside. Molly grabs Yasha and pulls her and Twiggy back into the tent, the fabric of the entrance flapping closed.

“What is it?” Twiggy asks, her brow furrowing.

“Crownsguard,” says Yasha, her mouth a tight line. “Molly and I probably count as fugitives—people from the Assembly are very interested in us, so it’s best for us to keep out of sight.” She nods to Molly, and says, “Especially Molly.”

Molly nods, and gently sets Twiggy down so he can tug his notebook out and write, _also I kno the man on the flote he had som1 beeten up becus they talkd back to him._

“What a meanie,” says Twiggy, frowning.

Does anyone say _meanie_ nowadays? Like, is that a thing normal people say? Molly honestly can’t tell, nothing about his life has been normal so far, and—he really doesn’t know what’s even normal for him anymore. Whatever, this is fine. People say _meanie_ in all seriousness.

 _yes hes a teribl person,_ he writes. _Id even say hes a dick._

“He’s definitely a dick too,” says Twiggy, with the same gravity she used for _meanie_.

“If we were doubting the Crownsguard was in his pocket before,” says Yasha, “there were a _lot_ of them out there. More than there should really be, I think—I’ve only been here a, a year or so, but that’s more Crownsguard in one place than I ever saw anywhere. Except Zadash.”

 _Im worryd abot the heist now,_ Molly writes. _even mor than befor which is saying somthing this guy has the town gard in his poket its almost garanteed som will be at the werehous and then what hapens if they see us?_

“We kill them,” says Yasha, with a shrug.

_al of them?_

“If we have to.” She sighs, then looks to Twiggy, who’s frowning a little at the idea. “But I don’t want to have to,” she adds. “So we’ll just have to make sure they don’t see us.”

“I can help with that,” Twiggy says. She inches forward and twitches the curtain aside, squinting out at the procession. “It’s moving really slowly,” she says, letting the curtain fall.

 _hes trying to ingratyaet himself w/ the publik,_ Molly writes. _wed do the same in the sirkus wed slow down a litle and let the crowd grow so we cud giv them a tayst of wat was waiting for them at the tent the biger the crowd the mor peepl we cud count on to see the show._ The bigger the crowd here, the more obvious it is that Rojen cannot possibly be up to anything wrong or even vaguely shady. Look at him, he’s fucking waving at the crowds!

“The bigger the crowd,” says Yasha, like she’s reached the same conclusions, “the more people would watch him, and the more people might wonder if he’s not as bad as they thought he was.”

“It’s like he’s casting an illusion,” says Twiggy, “right? Like, oh, look!” She thrusts an open palm out towards Molly, and a beautiful butterfly flutters up from her hand. Molly’s eyes track its upward movement, only for the butterfly to suddenly flicker out of view, and he immediately glances down to see an arcane hand waving at him near the hem of his coat, not touching, not attempting to lift anything off him, just—floating harmlessly. “See?” she says. The hand waves at him.

Molly discreetly tugs his coat out of the hand’s way anyway.

“I get what you mean,” says Yasha. “It’s like Molly and his fortunetelling patter.”

 _Im not very good at it curently,_ Molly writes, _but y somthing lyk that something ment to distract whyl ur trying to find the best card for the person in front of you exept this arshole is coning evry1 for nefaryus purposses._

“Do we know what those nefarious purposes are, though?” Twiggy asks. “Something about all this is making my gut twist a little bit.” As if to emphasize her gut, she places a hand on her stomach and winces.

 _I think thats all the shugar,_ Molly writes.

“Nahhh,” says Twiggy, dismissively waving a hand. “I’m really good with sugar, I barely ever get stomachaches. It’s my gnomish constitution!”

Molly really kind of doubts it, but then again, it’s not like he knows a whole lot about gnomish constitutions. He sighs, then writes, _you say you can help w/ mayking sure peopl dont see us._

“Well, yeah,” says Twiggy. “I’m pretty good at magic, I could make you or Miss Yasha look like anyone else.”

 _Im fine Im very good at pretending to be somthing Im not,_ Molly scribbles, and it’s not even a lie. Well, mostly. He’s not always sure he’s doing very good at pretending to be okay when he doesn’t feel like he is. _Yasha mygt need som help tho she hasent tryd to luk or act like som1 els as much as evry1 we kno._

“I’ve got a spell for that,” says Twiggy, wiggling her fingers. Sparks of arcane magic, red then blue then pink, dance around her fingertips. She turns, pulls the curtain just the tiniest bit to the side, and looks outside again. “He’s made it past us, but there’s still a lot of Crownsguard on his tail,” she reports.

“What do you want to do, Molly?” Yasha asks, just out of courtesy.

“Let’s just stay here and let this go past,” Molly says, absently tapping the blunt end of his pencil against his notebook. “If it’s still not safe in five minutes, we can duck behind one of those cabinets,” and he nods towards a cabinet full of sweets and luxurious-looking confections, “and cut our way out of the tent. We’d just have to distract the fellow at the counter.”

“Trixie could do that,” Twiggy volunteers. As if on cue, her squirrel chitters in agreement, peeking out of her jacket.

Molly looks at Yasha, who shrugs. Then he sighs, deciding not to point out that they’re entrusting distraction duty to a _squirrel_. If anything happens, he’ll make damn sure to blame the little rodent for not doing the job.

 _Tricksy has 5 mins to get redy,_ he writes.

\--

Getting into Lady Margaret’s Hall, despite the anti-magic wards muffling Caleb’s connection to Frumpkin and strangling any use of magic within its walls, is actually relatively painless. It’s not _ideal_ , of course, but Caleb had known he would be on his own here, for the most part.

Beau, beside him, whistles as they step through the entrance, accompanied by Arvista. “ _Damn_ ,” she says, looking up at the crystalline chandelier hanging over their heads, as they walk into the main lobby, its crystals refracting the sunlight coming in from the windows and firelight from the flickering torches into a thousand different colors, all around the room. “Never seen a library with a chandelier as big and fancy as that before.”

“It’s an exact replica of the one that once hung in the Lady Margaret’s childhood home,” says Arvista, proudly. “We went to great pains to duplicate it down to the smallest detail, from what few resources we had.”

Caleb politely does not tell her that he saw drawings of chandeliers like this only appearing _after_ the Age of Arcanum. He turns around slowly instead, memorizing every detail of the entrance, from the chandelier to the carved oak doors to the red-carpeted stairs on either side of the entrance and the beautifully-carved marble pillars, depicting heroes and monsters in appropriately heroic and villainous poses respectively. This is a level of ostentatiousness he’s sure Molly would appreciate, were he here. Since he isn’t, Caleb supposes he’ll just have to tell him.

It’s funny, how his chest warms at the idea. But then, Molly’s been gone for months, and he’s only been back a few days—almost all the way back, bright and stubborn and full of bullshit, the same way he’d been before. Just with some added paranoia, trauma, and the cold knowledge of how to kill someone quickly and efficiently, and of course the forced muteness.

“Anyway, since your stated purpose is,” Arvista says, looking down at the papers, “mental manipulation spells, you’re headed this way.” She spins around to point at the stair on the left side. “I’ll take you up, sir, and you’re not to leave that room. I’m really sorry, but it’s for security purposes. Those books can be dangerous, especially if they happen to fall into the wrong hands.”

Caleb dares a glance at Beau, who’s raised an eyebrow. _They already are,_ she doesn’t say, but Caleb can hear it loud and clear anyway. This library’s desire to keep information out of the hands of the public might be well-meant, but Caleb knows his friend. Beau isn’t pleased at all, especially considering her monastic order’s mission in disseminating information, and _especially_ since. Well. It’s _Beau_. He’s never met a woman so keenly interested in digging up information before.

“We understand,” he says, out loud. “Magic is useful, but it is as you said, in the wrong hands it could prove to be a danger.” Hands like Ikithon’s, for example. Hands like Caleb’s own, occupied as they are now with scratching behind Frumpkin’s ears.

Arvista leads them up the stairs, their footsteps muffled by the carpet. It doesn’t even look worn, the patterns along the edges as crisp as though the carpet had only just been rolled out. How many people come here, on a regular basis?

As soon as they’ve made the climb and stepped in front of the door, Arvista pulls a ring of keys out from her robe. They jingle as she fiddles with them, murmuring to herself, her brow furrowing.

Beau steps closer to Caleb and whispers, “So, lemme just check—no magic? _Really_ no magic?”

“No,” Caleb murmurs right back.

“Damn,” Beau mutters. “I was sorta thinking, if you could run a Detect Magic, we could narrow shit down faster.”

“ _Ja_ , I wish I could,” Caleb whispers, “but I’ve done research the old-fashioned way before. It’ll just take more time than doing it with magic.”

Beau opens her mouth, as if to say something more, but then her eyes slide towards the dwarven woman pushing the doors open, and she clamps her mouth shut. Caleb raises an eyebrow at her sudden reluctance, but decides not to pry. As soon as their guide is gone, he’s got a feeling Beau will let him know what plan she’s just come up with—after all, he recognizes the calculating look on her face.

Arvista leaves them in a room _full_ of books about magic, with strict instructions for Caleb to stay only in one spot and _only_ in this room once he’s selected the books he’ll need. She glances at Beau every so often, as if expecting her to fall in line behind him, but as soon as Arvista’s shut the doors behind them, Beau says, “You saw that other room, right?”

“ _Ja,_ I did,” says Caleb.

“Think there’s a bunch of other books there?”

“This is a library,” says Caleb, “either it is full of books or it is a study room. Why, do you think there might be something useful there?”

“Fuck yeah, I do,” says Beau. “We’re not just going up against mind control here, Caleb. Not anymore. We’re involved in this town’s bullshit now, we have to know if there’s any more secrets that’s being hidden from us under the festival lights.” She sweeps her hand out to indicate all the books surrounding them, the towering shelves full of ancient and not-so-ancient tomes, scrolls and paper, heaven to a wizard like Caleb. “I’m not gonna find it here in the magic section, I’m pretty sure about that.”

“I haven’t picked my books yet,” says Caleb, thoughtfully. “I can keep a lookout while you’re heading across, see if there’s anyone else coming up.” He takes Frumpkin off his shoulder, and his familiar gives an inquisitive meow as he shifts his grip, as if to cradle an infant instead of a cat. “And bring Frumpkin with you,” he says, holding his cat out, already missing Frumpkin’s weight on his shoulder. “You—behave, all right? And keep an eye on Beauregard. I won’t be able to contact you or her if anything happens, so you and her need to watch out for each other.”

“You sure about this?” Beau asks, taking Frumpkin from him. His cat meows in answer, and squirms around, paws flailing as if he wants to climb onto her shoulder. “Jeez, okay, here. Don’t claw it up,” she says to Frumpkin, lifting him up onto her shoulder. “Caleb?”

“I’m sure,” says Caleb, digging his hands into his pockets. Without Frumpkin, without Beau, without _anyone_ watching his back, he feels as though he’s stepping into a battlefield wearing only his undergarments. With barely any magic, he feels flayed open, heart and ribcage exposed for easy smashing. This is a bad idea. This is such a bad idea.

He thinks of Molly, sobbing in his arms, lilting voice tapering off into silence. He doesn’t ask Beau to give him his cat back.

“All right, then,” says Beau. “Soon as I’m done I’ll be back.” She cocks her head to the side, her eyes darting around the room and the one or two other people inside. “Don’t get stabbed again,” she says.

“That only happened _once_ ,” Caleb huffs. “I thought we agreed not to bring it up.”

“Can you blame me for getting worried?” Beau asks, and honestly, no, Caleb can’t exactly blame her. The playful punch she lands on his shoulder barely even counts as a punch, just a brief, forceful brush of knuckles against his shoulder, but he fakes a wince anyway and rubs at it. “Don’t wince, it wasn’t that hard.”

“Be careful,” he says. “Try not to get my cat killed.”

“I won’t, I won’t.” Beau cracks the door open, and pokes her head out. She crouches low as Caleb presses up to the door just behind her. “See anything?”

He glances around. Nothing yet, only an unsettlingly realistic painting of Lady Margaret in full warmage regalia just beside the other door. Something about its eyes—

He shakes his head. “ _Nein_ ,” he says, tearing his gaze away from the oddly creepy painting. He looks back at the other two library patrons, but they haven’t even peeked up from their books. “Go,” he whispers.

Beau creeps out of the room, Frumpkin held delicately in her arms. Her footfalls are but a whisper on the carpet as she moves, keeping low to the ground and out of sight of anyone who might be looking up from downstairs, and in seven minutes and twenty-one seconds, she’s already made it. She tenses visibly as her fingers touch the doorknob, and then pushes down, ready to jump out of the way.

Nothing happens. Caleb relaxes as the door opens, slowly enough that there’s only the barest hint of a creak. Then Beau slips inside, and she and Frumpkin are out of sight.

He looks back at the painting, and squints at the eyes. Then he shakes his head and closes the door behind him.

“You’ve got to stop reading Jester’s books,” he mutters to himself. “Paintings with eyes enchanted to move are too impractical, there is no way that one is enchanted that way.”


End file.
